I Will Stay with You Tonight
by SaraRhodes
Summary: Inspired by 4x05 where a patient pulls a knife in a suicide attempt. What if this happens in season one and it turns out to be more than just a scare? I just need a cute little Rheese fic for my poor fangirl heart post season four...so here goes.
1. Chapter 1

"Reese, come with me!"

Sarah jerks her head up at the call of her name, and sights Dr. Rhodes wheeling in with a patient. She regretfully looks at her half-finished chart, and takes a deep breath. Just one more trauma, before the end of her shift for the day, she tells herself, though it's more of a prayer than a fact.

"Forty-nine-year-old male, high-speed motor vehicle collision, GCS nine, BP eighty-four over sixty, heart rate one twenty-two, sat nighty-three per cent," the paramedic fires off a barrage of information which Sarah is pushing her brain to keep up with, let alone to make sense of.

"Muffled breath sounds on the left," declares Dr. Rhodes as he puts away the stethoscope. "I need a chest X-ray. Reese, start a femoral line."

She's got this. Even though she knows that she can't help but bereft herself again for back when she couldn't get it the first time, the first time she met Dr. Rhodes and he ordered her to do it on his patient. The embarrassment of that moment just seems to haunt her every time she repeats the procedure, and bring about the anxiety and fear of failure.

Looking at the dark red venous blood drawn up the syringe, she lets out a sigh of relief and allows herself to be distracted by the status of the patient for a moment. The man has all of a sudden snaps awake and has improved to a GCS thirteen.

"Whoa glad to see you're with us Mr. Yates," Dr. Rhodes is leaning over to reassure him while unpacking a chest tube kit. "I'm gonna put a tube in your chest to drain the blood so that you can breathe, okay?"

The next steps are easy. Guide the tube in and pull the wire out. Sarah works swiftly and adeptly, and sneaks a moment of being impressed by how Dr. Rhodes keeps his cool as always, no matter the circumstances.

"Lidocaine," the nurse hands him a syringeful of the narcotic. With a learning eye Sarah watches carefully as he inserts the needle in to the intercostal space.

A lot happens in an instant for which no one is ready. The patient suddenly gets hold of the freshly unpacked scalpel from the sterile tray set aside to the bed, and flings his hand at his own neck. Everything happens after that happens so fast that it's all a blur, like someone's been messing with time and space and tossed her into slow motion. Sarah's initial reaction is that the patient is sure dead from a ruptured carotid, and by the time she gets there, time and space has been restored. Dr. Rhodes is stuck in a stalemate with the patient, straining to hold him back from sitting up or hurting himself, and the two of them are so messed up and covered in blood that she can't even see what's going on.

"Reese!" Maggie's lashes out at her while struggling to keep the patient's fractured legs in place. She jumps, and remembers to rummage the drawer for an Ativan, snatching the first syringe that she can get her hands on and hoping to god that it's not the wrong one. She whips round and shoves the needle straight into the man's shoulder.

She feels the tension in his muscles easing up beneath her fist, and just before she can catch a breath, she hears a groan of pain that makes her look, and freeze at the sight of Dr. Rhodes collapsing onto the edge of the gurney and down to the floor.

"Connor!" Maggie rushes to his side and Sarah follows, snapping on a new pair of gloves. He has his ungloved right hand enclosed tightly around his upper left arm, where blood is oozing out through his fingers. He's clenching his jaw, grimacing in pain, and his breathing is quick.

"It looks like it's an artery," somehow all of a sudden her trauma instinct starts to kick in. She demands at Maggie, "I need a tourniquet. Go get the trauma attending on call!"

Maggie sprints to get the equipment while the other nurse sets about moving the patient. Sarah gets on her knees at Connor's side, placing a hand over his to apply more pressure to the bleed. He winces at the move, his eyes tearing up a little. It hurts her to see the pain in them, but she also sees countenance, and trust.

She pulls the tourniquet around his arm as tight as she can, before gently removing his hand to reveal the cut. The bright red blood that instantly flows out confirms her diagnosis. While the cut isn't too long, the knife was pushed in deep with force and has nicked his brachial artery, which puts him at risk of bleeding out. She takes the piece of gauze Maggie hands to her, and presses it against the wound.

"You need to clamp it now," he tells her in between shuddering breaths of pain.

"What – no. We have to wait for the surgeon," she is simply stating the inarguable fact, that she's a med student unauthorized to perform any invasive procedure.

"Dr. Berman is on her way down right now," Maggie adds encouragingly.

"I'll lose too much blood," the tenderness in his voice makes her flinch. He is pleading, and perhaps a touch afraid. She sees it in his eyes, those that are looking unswervingly into hers, and then, "I trust you."

For a brief moment she is completely taken by the look in his eyes, which she did not think was possible in any person, on top of the pain and the fear, a confidence in trusting his life to her just as much as he would trust it to himself.

"I can't," she states, maybe a little too impassively, yanking herself out of that moment of enchantment. If nothing else she doesn't want to hurt him. "Let's just get you to a treatment room. Here, hold this."

She places a clean piece of gauze on top of the three that's been soaked through, and lets him take over. He lowers his eyes, a saddened, miserable look that tears at her heart. She steps back frustrated being unable to help as he struggles to get up without a free hand to support himself, and Maggie is there to haul him up by his uninjured arm.

"Treatment three," Maggie motions at the room next door as she strokes comfortingly down his arm. Then she catches Sarah in passing, "You'll be okay?"

"Sure," she gives a quick nod before following Connor out the room.

"Lie down," she commands as he hops onto the treatment table.

"I don't need –"

"Could you do me a favor and not be another one of those difficult patients?"

He obeys, not because of her being snappy – she has every right to be for now he's simply her patient and not her supervising doctor – but because he can't hold it together anymore. Just as she feared, he's becoming hypotensive from the blood loss. He turns his head away from her and blinks his eyes shut, and she notices the beads of sweat on his neck and his skin is losing color.

"What happened?" Dr. Berman shows at the door.

"The patient went nuts and cut his arm with a scalpel. Lacerated brachial artery."

"That was your call?" the surgeon unpacks a suture kit and snaps on a pair of gloves as Sarah nods in conformity. "Good one. How long with the tourniquet?"

"About five minutes."

"Push eight of morphine," Dr. Berman orders as she peels the layers of gauze from Connor's arm. "Damn. That's at least a pint."

His veins are not hard to find, blue and bulging against his pale skin. He looks at her through the slits of his eyes as she slides the needle in, but does not flinch a bit, which is normal since the mind has a tendency to divert itself toward where it's experiencing the worst pain.

"Alright it's clamped," announces Dr. Berman as she scrutinizes the cut and evaluates the extent of the damage. "There's a hole in your brachial artery," she tells him, then turns to Sarah, "I think we can get away with the glue."

That's something Sarah didn't think of before. The glue is commonly used as a temporary fix, when a damaged vessel needs to be sealed and for some reason the patient is temporarily inviable for surgery. Then as she finds it from the supply cabinet, she remembers it being mentioned in one of her emergency medicine classes that the glue is a minimally invasive repair for smaller tears, despite being not as stable as a suture with a risk of secondary bleeding.

She hands the glue to Dr. Berman, worried by the fact that Connor is not opening his eyes while Dr. Berman works, not until Sarah presses her fingers to his neck to make sure he's not in hypovolemic shock, but is merely under the effects of morphine and his pupils are constricted. His eyes stay on her for a few seconds, before looking to Dr. Berman as she finishes with the glue and moves on to unclamping the artery.

"Okay now these can come off and we'll see if the bleeding stops," Dr. Berman carefully removes the clamp and loosens up the tourniquet. The wound is still a little oozy from the damaged capillaries, anyhow Sarah is relieved to see the lower extremity of Connor's arm regain its pristine color.

Dr. Berman's pager goes off just as she's about to close up the wound. "I have to get this," she tells Sarah. "Can you finish up here?"

"Yes," reassuringly she sends Dr. Berman on her way. Suturing is not one of the myriad of procedures that she hasn't done about a hundred times in her third year, she can't promise not to leave a scar though, not that he would mind.

"Okay. Here goes," she mumbles to herself as she picks up the needle, but somehow she says it loud enough for him to hear.

"You know, I would've done a better job," Connor turns his head to face her, his eyes glazed over and a little sluggish from the drug. "If I weren't kind of…out of it, thanks to you."

"Sure you could take it having someone clamp off your artery without narcotics," she huffs. She can sense that he doesn't like this. She wouldn't either. The time a doctor wants to get over with a situation as fast as possible, is when they are the patient themselves, and truth be told, it has more to do with the embarrassment of not being able to care for their own body than with the knowledge-informed fear of suffering, which is hardly a surprise to see in an unadulterated egotist like Connor.

"This one's probably going to stick around," Sarah declares lightly as the bleeding diminishes under her stiches. There are nine of them, placed across a red angry gash that's approximately two-inch long. "Pardon me for not having Saudis pay me well not to leave unsightly scars."

He just smiles at her, a touch enlightened that she remembers. Nothing about Connor Rhodes has been quite a secret ever since he got here. Being grudging as well as flattered to admit that he's one for turning heads around here, he was kinda hoping that in time they would turn away so he can focus on his work for just the time being with Downey, but now he realizes he may be wrong, because she remembers, and she knows him all-too-little and vice versa.

"All done," Sarah makes sure the elastic bandages are stuck firmly in place before snapping off her gloves, and gives up on trying to clean up as she reflexively presses a hand on Connor's chest to stop him from sitting up. "Whoa, what do you think you are doing?"

"I'm just gonna go home," he says in a casual manner and she can't help being amused that his eyes look like an innocent puppy.

"You just lost about a liter of blood," she puts on an unbelievable look even though she completely understands. "And it'll be three to four hours before the morphine starts to wear off. You're kept in observation for the night. Dr. Berman made that very clear."

"No she didn't," he blows her off, jesting.

"She's going to," Sarah springs to her feet. "Don't try anything before I get back."

He throws himself back on the bed in defeat, closing his eyes with a weary sigh, though she does not let slip the roll of his eyes underneath.

"Hey Maggie," she sneaks in from the side and distracts the nurse from her iPad for a second. "Do you know where I can find Dr. Berman?"

"She's still in surgery…" Maggie looks up at her, worried. "Is something wrong?"

"No, he's okay, other than being a stubborn idiot," Sarah rolls her eyes, frantically hoping that sounded like a joke, surprised at how she's just let it slip, otherwise that would not be a nice thing to say about Dr. Rhodes.

"That's the Connor I know," Maggie smirks, clearly as relieved as she is. "What do you need Dr. Berman for? I could ask her to –"

"Actually, you know what never mind," she cuts her off dismissingly, turning away.

"You sure?" Maggie calls to her back.

"Yep," she knows exactly how this is gonna end once she goes about letting Dr. Berman handle the situation.

She slips across the waiting room. There's the usual evening gloom in the air, when it's getting dark outside and most of the out patients have been sent on their way and it's just a few families left devasted, anxiously waiting for a word on their loved ones, and you almost hear a bizarre echo in air as the empty hall brace itself for the catastrophe looming in the dark of the night out there.

That's why the night shift is always the tough one. No one wants to stay in on a night like this, and she among all things is glad that she doesn't have to do it, not tonight.

She grabs the orange juice from the vending machine, running face to face into Will as she turns to take her leave. She hears jealousy in his goodnight to her, which only makes her smirk bigger as she wishes him good luck with his shift.

Expectedly she finds Connor in the lounge, standing in front of his lock and struggling to pull on his jacket. He throws at her a glance as she enters, and stops at a second look seeing the bottle in her hand.

"Seriously?"

She raises an eyebrow at him, making a silent uh-hum.

He stares for a moment, then takes the bottle from her, blinking in thanks.

"Here," she picks up the side of his jacket to let him stiffly shove in his injured arm, and before he has the chance to thank her a second time, she announces in an indisputable manner – or so she hopes, "I'm taking you home."

He chuckles softly, "That's not necessary –"

"I'm keeping you under observation," she cuts him off and straight to the point. "And if you're more comfortable doing it at home that's fine by me."

Judging by the caught-off-guard look on his face she'd say she pulled that one off pretty slick. And so she's not hesitant to fuel the flame, "By the way I just saved you an AMA from Dr. Berman."

"I didn't know you had a car," is all he can think of to say.

Puppy eyes, a little hurt, tired, and defeated – but in a good way. They send them butterflies all flappy in her stomach.

"Not one you'd fancy sitting in," she didn't use to be bothered by the slumped backseat or the smell in that piece of second-hand junk she owns, and yet he's a Rhodes.

"We'll take mine then," he says halfheartedly, and pretends to be grudging about it.


	2. Chapter 2

And there they are racing down the emptying road as the clock ticks late into the night. Sarah forces her mind to focus on driving and not the unaccustomed feel of the steering wheel in her hands. Connor has insisted on sitting at the back, and she thanks him hysterically now for otherwise the silence would be an inescapable embarrassment.

"When…you said you trusted me, did you mean that?"

Despite the insecurity she constantly feels about having to make conversation, this isn't that. Sarah knows it from the bottom of her heart, that it's more of a genuine question, that even if it's out of the line, she needs an answer from him.

"Why?"

It takes a long, breathless moment of silence atop the illusive hum of the car engine for her to realize that she isn't going to get one. Taking her eyes off the open road, she sneaks a glance over her shoulder to see him curled up in one end of the backseat, his head lulled against the window. He blinks wearily, his eyes bleary before he lets them fall closed.

She pulls into the parking space, throws off her seatbelt and takes a moment to breathe and get her mind sorted out over everything she's done, which is more than she was told. Though she doubts this would get her into trouble of any kind, what troubles her is that her actions might have just blurred a line.

"Connor," she gives him a gentle shove in the shoulder, bending over the car door. "Wake up. We're here."

He grumbles softly, blinking open his eyes, addled, "What time is it?"

"Late," she's never seen him like this. "How long was your shift?"

"'bout twenty-four hours," he tells her as he scoots out of the car, landing on his feet and steadying himself on the doorframe. "Look, you can – take my car if you need to go."

"I don't," maybe she doesn't want it there any more, the line. She can't help but wonder where they'd stand without it.

Oh, he mouths, with a nod.

"Don't you have a shift tomorrow?" he asks her, leaning back against the elevator wall and supporting himself by gripping on the bar.

"I'll worry about that when I'm finished with this one," she states blandly stepping out the elevator.

"Sarah –" he catches her arm as the door closes behind them, and it makes her heart skip a beat. "You don't have to do this."

"It's fine," she asserts. "Really, Dr. Berman would have me watch over you anyway, and – I hated staying at the hospital as much as you did."

Their eyes meet for what feels like an eternity, before he turns away to unlock the door. He lets her in first.

Everything in the furnish is so undoubtedly him, sleek and minimalistic, and a little fancier than she expected. The city lights spill in through the glass wall on the other side, landing on a coffee table covered in magazines and medical journals. On the righthand side is a wall of his medical certificates, and a furnace on which stood a row of spinning tops, five of those, a collection.

"You can stay in the spare bedroom if you want." She jumps at Connor's voice and draws her hand back just as she was about to lift one of the tops off of its dock and give it a spin.

"Right. After I finish checking you."

"You'll find the kit in the kitchen," he steps closer. He has removed his jacket and even in the dim light she can see blots of dried blood on the side of his scrubs.

She goes, brushing past him, into the dark. She flicks the light on, a balmy, warm hue that reminds her of the sunset glow at that Hawaiian bar she went once. He invited the entire team to celebrate a patient who made it through surgery, and all she did was putting in a central line. Everything is black except for the counter top, snow-white and stainless marble, and everything looks brand-new, not much sign of living. Everything has its tranquility, a dignified calmness that possesses the air. It's the same air around him, as she comes to realize now, that always makes her feel at peace in his presence.

She finds the med kit sitting alone in the cabinet at the corner, and makes her way to the dining room. He sits at the table in compliance as she takes his blood pressure, pulse and sats, and the numbers come out mostly satisfying. She checks his pupils, pinpoints, expectedly nonresponsive thanks to the morphine.

"I meant it."

She draws back with the flashlight, and forgets to turn it off.

"When I said I trusted you, I did," an earnest look, his eyes sway a little, "I do."

"Well you're wrong," she clicks off the flashlight and puts it back in the kit. "I couldn't have done it. I wouldn't have – hurt you."

"No," his eyes are locked on hers. "You wouldn't because you knew that a doctor had your back, just like you knew I had your back when you did the central line, every time."

"Right," she laughs in a self-deprecating manner. "My ED rotation ends in two weeks and all I can do is a central line."

"That's not the point," he frowns at her.

"Then what is?"

"I was told that when given responsibility, people rise to the occasion," he quotes. She tilts her head, listening. "You have it in you, Sarah. You proved it, when you made the right call and…you saved my life."

That moment of gaze must have been the longest one she's shared with another person in this life. She's lost count of how many beats her heart skipped before she takes hold of the words, "Anyone else could've done it."

"But you did." She'd never forget the look in his eyes, that genuine, unswerving trust. "Thank you Sarah."

"You're welcome Connor," she hears herself saying his name. Sure this time he hears it too. Butterflies, they light up her whole heart, and puts on her face the brightest smile she's ever smiled.She is the one to break the gaze, and her eyes land on his bloodied scrubs, "You need to change out of that."

"And you can have some of my clean shirts too," he grins, turns and makes his way to the bedroom.

* * *

City lights. They sneak in through the slit in-between the curtains, a peculiar reminder that she's lying in a strange bed. She resents the feeling of unfamiliarity, especially when in such a vulnerable state for one, sleeping. It closes in on her, making it hard to breathe, her oxygen-deprived brain drifting in and out of consciousness. Tossing and turning. Her hand lands on something soft, slightly cooler, skin. Without looking, she runs her fingers over it, muscles, hair, chest, face. Lips, they're on hers. Breaths, moisture, cravings. She feels it surge through her. Eyes, blue, dark in the dark. They're flickering, burning with desire. He rolls over on top of her. Kissing, sucking, their tongues entwine. Every drop of blood in her body screams for more. She grasps onto his arms. Muscles, rippling beneath her hands. Skin, smooth, unscathed, an arousing touch.

All dreams feel real when you're in them. True. All dreams have a tell. Also true. She has found herself, from a very young age, to have the ability to know a dream from reality, and to make herself wake up if it's a bad one. Not this time. She wants this. She wants him.

Flickering, city lights, wavering curtains. That's it, that's the cue. Remember where you were, where you are, and snap – she feels her eyes open, a flick of the switch, the lightroom is dark.

Sweaty, wrapped up in the sheets, her heart racing, shortness of breath, not abnormal when waking up. She feels for her own lips, and runs a hand down the length of her body. His t-shirt smells like him. It felt so real.

All of a sudden she's afraid, of herself, as if she's committed a crime. Maybe she did, but no murderer is guilty when they kill in their head.

She gets up and walks to the curtains, and peals them apart. City lights, a thousand pair of eyes, scrutinizing, judging. She turns her back, inhales, and exhale. She needs proof, for the first time in her life, that her imaginations aren't real.

The clock ticks. It's just past midnight. Her bare feet are cold on the floor but she doesn't care, sauntering all the way to the kitchen. She fills two glasses with water, downs one and carries the other in one hand and the med kit in another. He has left his bedroom door unlatched. She stands in it for a moment, in the dark. The city light seeps in through the draperies, and carves out his profile in a silver lining. His face is peaceful, expressionless, a beauty as always. She moves closer, and all she can hear is his breathing, in sync with her own, slow and steady, a natural hypnotic.

She lowers herself down on one knee, and waits for it. His eyes are fluttering. Any second now. A switch is flicked. She finds herself looking into the exact same pair of blue eyes, dark in the dark, pained, confused, and a trace of panic.

"It's okay it's me," she quickly reassures him. He's catching his breath now.

"What, are you doing," he blinks at her, frowning.

"Nothing. I just – had a messed-up dream and I had to…check on you," she trails off at the half lie, reflexively pulling back as Connor tries to haul himself up with his good arm, and winces at the attempt to free his injured one of the sheets.

"That, was creepy," he complains, chiding.

"No, don't get up," she brings the glass to his lips. "I just need to check your pulse."

"I'm not five," he tells her, slightly annoyed.

"Nope. You're just my patient. Besides, I do what the nurses do all the time."

He pauses a beat before scooting himself over to the edge of the bed and dropping his legs, and extends his hand to take the glass. She pinches his other wrist, and counts as he drinks. Fifteen seconds, twenty-one beats. She puts it down to the fact that she just scared him and that he's in pain.

"Looks like the morphine's out of your system," she can see that his pupils are fully dilated in the dark, but uses the flashlight one more time just to be safe. She puts it back in the kit and grabs the Tylenol bottle.

"May I be released from your observation?" he asks through the pills in his mouth, before swallowing them dry.

"Yes, you are," she grins, packing up the kit. "Go back to sleep."

He obeys, tucking himself back under the covers. She gathers the stuff and gets up to leave.

"You too," more of a question than a command. He's asking, even a little pleading.

"Don't worry," she says to him over her shoulder as she makes for the door. "I will stay with you tonight."


	3. Chapter 3

**_Rheese cuddles x_**

* * *

"Reese! You're late."

Sarah gets intercepted by Joey coming out of the elevator as she hurries down the ED. It only occurred to her when she woke up in Connor's apartment this morning that she had to find a bus to take, not wanting to wake him up and ask to borrow his car.

"I'm sorry. Last night there's been an incident…"

"Yeah, I heard," Joey cuts her off. She can't tell if he's impatient or desperate. "That's the thing, the patient's blood work just came back. He's HIV positive."

Sarah takes the report from her boyfriend. She finds the patient's name, and then just stares at the paper as her mind takes a few seconds to come to terms of the situation.

"Sarah," he sounds out, worried.

"Take this to Dr. Berman will you?" Sarah takes a breath, snapping herself out of the moment. "I have to – make a call."

She hands him back the report. Joey shifts his feet, eyes fixed on her, hesitant to say some more, but doesn't, and instead turns and makes for the elevator.

She grabs her phone, impulsively searching for his number, and finds that she doesn't have it. Why would she, considering he's only a colleague she barely knows? Last night certainly was nothing more than her being responsible for her patient. She lowers her phone and sighs, mulling over her options. She could ask Maggie, or better let Dr. Berman handle the situation, but she feels a strange loss of privacy at the thought. Somehow this feels personal, just between the two of them, and everyone else is an intruder if they were to get involved.

"Maggie," she hurries around the nurse station. "I need an hour of personal time if that's okay?"

"Yep," the nurse takes her eyes off the screen for one sec. "But you just got in. is something wrong?"

"Yes," she doesn't feel like being news breaker right now. "It is."

Doubts emerge in the older woman's eyes, but Maggie knows better than to pry, making a silent okay to Sarah before she takes her leave.

* * *

Connor wakes up to a tearing pain in his left arm. He needs nothing else to remind him of the mishap in the ED last night, and Sarah. He has to admit, that he was lucky to have her. She made his pain and exhaustion go away, and she made him feel safe.

He drags himself out of bed. The Tylenol bottle still sits quietly on the night stand. She's going to make a great doctor, even though she doesn't realize it yet. He thinks as he swallows some more pills before sauntering over to the spare bedroom.

For a moment he is convinced that it was merely a dream, before he lays eyes on one of his gray t-shirts neatly folded up on the center of the bed that's been cleanly made. He goes over the closet, then the bathroom. Everything's been left untouched. If he didn't know better he'd say she got cold feet, but he appreciates the respect, the formality between the two of them, a beginning to a delicate yet solid friendship.

He rummages the refrigerator for a quick breakfast, unsurprised to find that she probably didn't have time to steal herself one, even though neither of them would ever consider it stealing. He can't help be amused at the thought that she too often looks like a kid who's broken a glass, always careful and self-conscious about making mistakes, one of the rare but valuable qualities you see in doctors, despite its downsides, and he's been determined to get her over it.

The doorbell snaps the stream of his thoughts. He puts down the milk halfway through pouring it, and rounds the counter to get the door, and, to his astonishment, finds Sarah standing in the hallway, still dressed in her clothes from yesterday.

"Hey," he tries to greet her brightly, but her face is serious, if not solemn, and her eyes look sad, more so than usual.

"I have to take you to the hospital."

He can't read her face, but her voice is telling him she's scared. He blinks at her, frowning.

"The patient that stabbed you…he's HIV positive," the words don't come out right, not to her. The whole thing feels insensibly wrong. It cuts into her heart to see the innocent perplexity in his eyes overtaken by astonishment and terror, but just for a split second, before he goes to hide away behind the walls, leaving the door wide open with her in it.

When Connor shows at the door a second time, in his jacket and carrying his bag, Sarah lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Suddenly she falls into this false illusion of the two of them going to work together on an ordinary morning, though it only lasts a few beats, before reality strikes again with a ding of the elevator.

It's a silent ride downstairs, and a silent ride to the hospital, yet it feels unadulteratedly different than it did last night. She's never felt so distant from him even though he's sitting in the passenger seat right next to her, and refusing to look at her. She loses count of how many stealthy glances she's thrown his way. His face is blank from the side, and she's too scrupulous to try and make eye contact, until they've pulled into a parking space and he gets out of the car first. She follows, and, over the car roof, their eyes meet, just for a split second. Then he turns away and flounders toward the ED.

They look like they're slammed, the staff flustering around the place shouting out orders. No matter how familiar he is with the setting, Connor walks in more than a little overwhelmed.

"Connor," Maggie spots him in and comes up to him, her eyes wide with concern, fully focused on him for just the moment. "I've just signed you in. Dr. Aljadeff is ready for you."

"Thank you Maggie," Connor replies lightly the way he does when he's being pulled into work, and makes his way to the elevator without one look back at Sarah.

Sarah shuffles a few steps behind him, hesitant to follow, a dozen scenarios playing in her head. Does he blame her somehow, for what happened last night? If anything she blames herself, for she was in the room and she failed to get hold of the patient in time. It makes her angry, now that she thinks about it, that the man would do something like this, when he knew he's carrying an incurable disease, well if, he knew, to be fair, but Sarah has this gut feeling that he does, otherwise why would he attempt suicide…?

"Reese," Dr. Choi pops the door of the lounge as she pulls on her white coat. "We've got incoming. You're with me."

Turns out it was an apartment building set on fire about six blocks away, on a supposedly peaceful Saturday morning when people were sleeping in. PD already suspects arson, but still no clue on a suspect. They treated burns after burns, and about a dozen fractures caused by attempted escapes from windows, a few of which were more than attempts after all. These people are lucky to have to wear a cast rather than burn to death.

Their day comes to an end with the tragic death of Dr. Choi's burn patient, who begged then to let him live a little longer just so he could say goodbye to his wife, but never got to. Watching him go like that makes Sarah even angrier at the amount of disregard that the suicide patient has for his and someone else's life.

She leaves Ethan alone sulking at a computer screen and strides her way right up to the ICU.

There's no one else in the room, and when she throws the door open purposefully loud, at the sound he man opens his eyes, following her as she comes closer.

"Hey uh, the doc that tried to stop me back there, he okay?"

"Did you know you have HIV, Mr. Yates?"

"Yeah. Found out 'bout fifteen years ago," he takes a self-loathing tone. "I'm sorry."

If that first one was a genuine question, the next few might as well be rigorous interrogation, and Sarah has to oblige herself not to flip out at the patient.

"Sorry?" Sarah questions unbelievingly. "Do you realize what you have done? You stabbed a doctor, and it's not just that you could've killed him. He's practically being given a death sentence –"

"I tol' you I wanna die," now he sounds desperate. "Why can't you just let me die?"

"I don't care," Sarah pushes closer, gritting her teeth. "But you wanna drag someone else down with you? Treating other people's life like a joke? That makes you a murderer. Do you hear me? You're a murderer."

She stresses every syllable. She's practically yelling, and about an inch from spatting at the guy, who's cringing at her words, face contorted in remorse.

"Reese," Dr. Charles calls from the door. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

He excuses them from the patient, and steers her toward the nurse station, "That was a little too aggressive don't you think?"

"I suppose you've heard what he did," tears of anger push at the back of her eyes as she tries to defend herself.

"Yeah, and I'm very sorry that this has happened, but it is inappropriate for one to accuse others of their actions without knowing the whole story," he talks calmly and earnestly, but that fails to calm her down.

"Actions?" she snaps, perhaps in too cynical a tone. "What he did to Connor was assault, and attempted murder given his awareness of his own condition."

"I understand your concerns for Dr. Rhodes. I really do," his words make her flinch, catching her off guard, but he's too good at the game of pretend. "I mean, you were there, and – and it could've been you, and it's totally normal to fear for your safety. But – what's important now is that we have the information, and the patient is under control so he can't hurt anyone else okay?"

"It's not fair," Sarah shakes her head, and pulls on a helpless sneer trying to bite back the tears. "It's just not fair…"

Daniel is about to console her when a code sounds from the room. He takes off rushing in with a nurse, but Sarah stands her ground. The patient is not arresting, so the DNR is off limits, though, for the first time in her line of work, Sarah would be glad if patient's death wish could be honored.

She watches as the flock nock themselves out over a man who doesn't want to be saved, and figures she's got better things to do with her off time. She doesn't feel like heading home yet, not after everything today had to offer. And Connor, the thought of him crosses her mind as the elevator carries her down, alone, now that it's past the usual time of switching shifts. She's made no attempt to get through to him. She doesn't know how anyway, determined that he wants nothing more to do with her than having been her patient, and vice versa.

She shoves some of that coffee beans Joey gave her in her mouth as she makes her way to the lounge, preparing to go over her notes again and try not to lose another patient on her next shift tomorrow. She pushes through the glass door and as her eyes land on the couch, her heart skips a beat and she forgets to chew.

There sits Connor, hunched over with his head down, fiddling with a little bottle of pills in his hands.

"Hey," she sounds out, and he finally lifts his eyes up at her. "What'd they say?"

"They're starting me on PEP and…there's no way to test for it now," his voice is distant, if not indifferent, as if he was talking about just another patient, but his eyes are glazed over, and look lost, but mostly tired.

She stands there at a loss for words as he looks away. Nothing he told her was not what she already knows, and there's nothing she can tell him that's not what he already knows.

"I thought you went home."

He throws a glance at her, "I was going to, but…what was I supposed to do just sit there and stare at the wall I…I don't want to be alone."

Those words strike her heart and it shatters into a million pieces. Half-awake, she lands one knee beside him on the couch and wraps her arms around his shoulders. He welcomes the embrace by tilting his head and slipping further into her chest. She's sitting on her right leg now, her chin resting on his head. She can feel his eyelashes flattering against the crook of her neck. There are no tears, just quiet. His fragrance creeping its way up her nostrils, and the feel of him in her arms, both soft and solid at the same time, it reassures her that as long as the world still turns, there is light in it.

All she has to keep time with is the sound of his breathing, in sync to her own, and she almost loses track of it, before her compressed leg starts to tingle and she has to wriggle for balance, accidentally grabbing onto his injured arm. He winces at the move, hissing, and she beats herself up once more for her clumsiness.

"Sorry," she flusters when pulling back, and ends up dumping herself bottom-down in the other end of the couch. She instantly straightens up, eyeing him with a wary eye. "Have you had that dressing changed?"

She does not let slip the glitter of bemusement that flits the corner of his eye, before it gives in to a weary sigh, "No. They're all busy."

"I'll help you," she gets to her feet, straightening her white coat. He follows her, still holding the pill bottle, and pauses his steps by the door. They share a brief moment of staring into the ED, that bizarre echo in the air, a bleached gloom given off by the ceiling lights as they glow lonely in the night bracing for the catastrophes it has to offer. Across that space the trauma rooms are open, awaiting, and it strikes her in an instant that the last thing he needs is to relive last night, and same goes for her.

"Fine," she turns and walks to the lockers, his eyes following her. She throws off her white coat and pulls on her casual one, and finds that he's turned to face her.

"Let's go home," she smiles, freeing her hair from the collar of her coat.


	4. Chapter 4

"Sarah."

She wakes up to a lovely pair of eyes that are light gray in the bland morning light spilling in through the curtains. Connor is standing over her in his spare bedroom, holding a coffee mug in his right hand and nudging at her shoulder with his left one. Her eyes move up the length of his arm and land on the loop of white bandages she placed there last night, proof that she's not dreaming this up. She mumbles something in complaint, rubbing at her bleary eyes.

"Sorry to wake you up this early but if you want a ride to work, I have rounds," he says lightly, taking a sip of his coffee.

It's hard not to put on a smile, seeing the old joyful Connor he's back to being. She sobers up in an instant and jumps out of bed, his t-shirt draping on her like a hospital gown. It's just past five am. Despite the early bird inside her, she thought a little extra sleep might actually do her more good than going a second time over the notes that kept her up till midnight last night.

"I thought you were taking the day off," she says grabbing for her bag of toiletries she has for overnights at Med.

"That was yesterday," he blinks at her. "I have work to do."

"But the ART you're on has side effects, right?"

He sighs, shrugging, "so far so good."

She can't help but grin at his optimism, finding it hard to concentrate on what she has to say, "look, Connor, you don't have to do this. I can always take the bus…"

"I've got this weird feeling that we've had this conversation, though it seems like it was the other way around last time," he pretends to be confused and it's ten times more charming that there's no way for her to resist. "Come on, it's the least I can do to pay you back."

"Okay," she takes a breath. "I'll be out in ten minutes."

The sun is just coming up by the time they pull into the parking lot. Sarah gets off first from the passenger seat, and sights, about three cars away, Will Halstead looking at her, and winking at her, all of which seems to go unnoticed to Connor, who slams the car door behind her, fixes his bag up on his shoulder, and throws a "see you later" at her over the car roof before hurrying off to his rounds.

She sighs, trying to brush it off of her mind. Out of the corner of her eye she spots Will coming toward her, and figures she can avoid that sort of attention for now and grab a decent breakfast before starting her shift, having declined Connor's offer of a meal from his fridge.

Turns out, she was wrong. The breakfast is as decent as it could be before April comes sitting down at her table seeing as there're no empty ones left, smiling one of her brightest and snakiest sneers at Sarah, "Dr. Rhodes, huh? Getting pretty good in there."

"What? No!" she exclaims, half out of astonishment and half out of defense.

"Don't bother," April shakes her head, pretendedly bored. "Dr. Halstead saw you two coming in together. Or is there anything more than that?"

"There is nothing going on, I swear," knowing that the nurse is only being friendly, Sarah can't help feeling a little offended.

"Maybe, but you sure gonna have a lot of rivals around here. Count me in," April glares at her, lips still smiling as she takes a large bite of her sandwich.

"There's nothing to rival for," Sarah feels stung at April's you-can-say-that look, and to be honest at the not-so-innocent tone in her own voice, freezing on the spot for a beat, blinking, before she clumsily picks up her tray and speeds her leave.

* * *

Keith Yates, the name rings one big hell of a bell. Connor frowns at the chart as he makes his way to the last room to round this morning.

Pseudoaneurysm from a displaced bypass graft, a result of blunt trauma from the crash. They did an emergent repair when he first came in but it's not ideal, and apparently the guy went and got himself a DNR in place and has turned down all treatment.

"Morning Mr. Yates. How are you feeling?"

"Like it's taking too long for me to die," the man grouches in a coarse voice.

"Yeah, sorry that I stopped you from doing that," Connor retorts in a sarcastic tone.

"Hey doc," the man says after a while, making Connor look at him for what he has to say, and now he looks sincerely remorseful. "I'm sorry."

Connor gives a nod too subtle for the man to register, and looks away. What's he supposed to say, that he'd do it again, which he would, that he accepts the apology? The whole thing has gone just too far for that.

"It's probably not my place to ask but…Why did you try to kill yourself?"

"Because I'm a dead man walking," he replies, self-pitiful and scary calm.

That leaves Connor stunned for a solid half minute before he can muster the courage and medical knowledge to make an argument, "That's not true. With the correct course of treatment most HIV patients can live long and healthy lives –"

"Man, look at me. This ain't ever the life I wanted. Taking them meds all the time and more meds for all the side effects? After I had that heart attack, I started asking myself, what's in it for me? This life ain't worth nothing. Better just end it without too much suffering."

"What about your family?"

"Knew I had it coming," he seems to be ignoring the question. "Wasn't even thirty, got into drugs. My wife took the kid, never came back. I swore to get clean, did it, then found out I had AIDS…My boy, Max, he reached out to me a while back, says I'm all he has after his mom passed, and I thought he better off not knowing what kind of a dirtbag I am."

Connor just looks at him, a face deeply creased with shame and guilt. He feels for that man, and not all of it is empathy.

"Listen, Keith," he glances at the chart again, and takes a breath. "You have a second chance to make things right. Now your aneurysm is still operable. We wait a few more hours and it may be too late."

The man does not respond. Connor can read uncertainty in his face and his eyes between the deep frown of his brows. Just then a knock on the door makes him turn and spot Sarah standing there with a young man.

She clears her throat and takes an impassive tone, "Mr. Yates, you have a visitor."

Connor backs out of the room, brushing past the young man whom he assumes is Max, and makes for the nurse station to fill in some charts. Sarah joins him a moment later, leaving the father and son to their problems.

"So he's your patient now?" she questions.

"Uh-huh," he keeps looking at the chart. "Dr. Berman was just covering for me, plus I'm on CT today."

"Did he say why he tried to commit suicide?"

"Family issues," he tells her briefly, deciding to leave out the suffering part for now. "Didn't want to get his son involved in the kind of messed-up life he has."

"Turns out to be a good Samaritan," she means to be sarcastic but somehow that doesn't come out right.

"Well, I was hoping to get him to change his mind," Connor looks up at Sarah, hopeful, completely missing her point, "and accept the surgery."

"No –" she blinks in disbelief. "Why are you even trying to save him?"

"Because…he's my patient," he stresses the last word, frowning at her.

"Aren't you angry at what he did to you?" she snaps, desperation taking hold of her voice.

"Are you?" he retorts the question back at her, narrowing his eyes.

She freezes at his doubt, caught off guard the second time in a day.

"No," she lies, and instantly regrets doing it to him. "I mean yes. Yesterday when we lost a patient, I wished I could take the life of those who didn't want it and…"

She trails off, breaking their gaze, and they share a moment of weighted silence.

"You can't jump in and save everyone Reese. It's just not possible," he says to her and she doesn't look at him. "But that day we saved this man's life, and I'd do it again. I am doing it again."

We. Their eyes meet and her heart skips a beat. To him, as she comes to realize, she's never a med student to be ordered around, but someone he's been fighting side by side with, and it's been like that since day one.

And so without a second thought she follows him rushing into the room when the code sounds again.

"What happened?"

"He was just talking," Max panics. "Help him, help my dad, please!"

"BP's dropping," Sarah looks alarmingly at the monitor.

"Pseudo aneurysm ruptured," Connor makes the diagnosis, and then looks down at the barely conscious man. "Keith, look at me, hey. You have to let us operate now okay? This is it, your second chance. You deserve it."

"Pops, you gotta let them docs help you, please," Max is on the other side holding his father's hand. "cuz I ain't mad at you, I promise."

"Do what you have to," the man barely croaks out, but he does, just before slipping out of consciousness.

"Alright," Connor announces as he slams off the breaks on the gurney. "Let's get him to the OR."

* * *

"Hey what's wrong?" Sarah finds her boyfriend to sit with at lunch but Joey barely takes notice of her.

"Is it true?" slowly he turns to her with scrutinizing eyes. "That you're sleeping with Dr. Rhodes?"

"No!" she snaps in defense, more frustrated than annoyed. "Why, does everyone think I'm stupid enough to sleep with someone who's not in the clear of HIV."

"You went home with him two nights in a row and think I wouldn't know?"

"I was just trying to help, as a friend," she manages to scare herself when that doesn't come out as innocent as she believed it was. "It's not like anything happened."

"Sure," Joey scoffs, clearly not buying any of her words. "When was the last time you seen a doctor befriend a med student."

The third time being caught off guard this day, she finally sways under the inexorable power of rumors among the ED staff, and can't help thinking that at least some of what they're crazing about is true, that there is something going on between her and Connor.

"That's what I thought," Joey fleers at her silence, before gathering his tray and walking away.

The thought keeps Sarah from focusing on her work the rest of the day. Every where she looks, she feels like people are staring and talking even if they're not. She hasn't got a chance to see Connor again, now that he's working two floors above her. She breezes through the charts as fast as she can, hoping to catch him in the lounge before getting off work. She needs to talk to him. She sighs as she picks up her bag and straightens her coat, just when she assures herself that she has missed him and would not have to worry about it till tomorrow.

"Hey."

She freezes at his voice, and for a second daring not look in the direction it came from. She can feel time flow bypassing her as he moves around the room, and winds up in front of his locker right next to hers.

"How was the surgery?" she asks, thanking herself for one successful attempt to make conversation.

"It was good," Connor replies, a light smile emerging on his face. "Keith gets a second chance to make things right with his son."

She looks to him, and see in his eyes a glitter of pride, and envy. She understands then, why he did it, and it was beyond saving a life, something far more personal than that.

"How was your day?"

"It was okay," she squeezes out a smile. "No one died."

He looks at his watch, "how about dinner, to celebrate? You can have something a little different than garden salad this time."

She freezes on the spot at his invite, looking at him with flurried eyes like a deer caught in the headlights. It's hard not to breathe in the joyous air around him, one that brings her back to that night in his kitchen, then to the other one at the riverside bar.

She looks out into the ED. The lounge is about to get busy with the staff coming in and out switching shifts. One more, she tells herself, this is her chance to make things right, once and for all.

"Okay," she puts on a smile, and lets him lead her out the door, and nearly misses April walking in with a surreptitious squint at the two of them.

She gets the tofu kimchi quesadilla as he recommended last time. He seems enlightened that she remembers. What he doesn't know is that she'd do it with every second of him if she could, starting day one, when she failed out on the central line and became the first dumbass med student he had to diaper in this job, that one embarrassing moment in her entire life for which she has no regret. Since then he's been holding her hand all the way, leading her to where she is, who she is now, a confident doctor-to-be taking pride in life saving, but the thing is, the past few days has pushed her to a dangerous, yearning edge where she would not allow herself to fall from.

They sit on a bench at the edge of the building, hidden in between the thick columns that cast their shadows under the streetlights. She chews quietly through her meal, wishing she could make time go backwards and find herself in the light of that midday with a garden salad in hand leaning against the column right behind him, where he didn't see her but she wouldn't mind. In fact she wouldn't change a thing. Strangely it would reassure her to just rewind over and over the past nine weeks, one of the few chapters in her life where she knew where she was going and that it'll be okay.

Only now she comes to find that the silence they share can never be awkward, for they both have a little introvert inside that comes out and seems to enjoy the soundless space. It gets to the point where she finds it useless poking at the leftovers of her dinner, and she draws in a breath, "Did you hear the rumors?"

Connor whips his head at her. They exchange a look in the eye, but no words.

"About us," she reminds him.

"I don't listen to them," he finally says, disinterested.

"Well apparently my boyfriend does."

"Didn't know you had a boyfriend," he brushes it off playfully, looking at his food instead of her.

"I'm being serious. Connor –"

"Why are you so afraid of people talking about something that's not there?" he deadpans, the look in his eyes scarily sensible.

Because it is there.

She opens her mouth but the words don't come out. Lowering her eyes to escape the burn of his gaze, she can feel tears of anger and despair pushing at the back of them. That's what all her feelings for him has all of a sudden turned into, because they were only ever unrequited, because she has fallen in love with someone that she knew she can't ever be with.

"Sarah…" that tenderness in his voice makes her heart skip a beat, her eyes drawn to his, locked in a permanent gaze, an eternity and an eyeblink at the same time, one that's forever engraved in her memory, where she understands that he feels the same for her, and their hearts are one.

Imperceptibly, he reaches for her hand on the bench in between their thighs. Her muscles convulse at the touch and she jerks away from him, the chill of a Chicago winter night cutting through her skin quenching the fire inside of her.

"This is wrong," she chokes through the tears welling in her eyes. "And it needs to stop."

"No it's not," he pleads, his voice as soft and sharp as a feather cutting into her heart, but she refuses to look at him, to see the pained longing in his eyes when he says, "I love you."

"I could lose my job for this," she says staring into her laps, terrified at the calmness in her own voice. "And I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I...end up in a life without you…I guess it's easier to turn an emotion off before it becomes real."

Finally she meets his gaze once again, and holds it. She doesn't know which hurts more, to cut him out of her heart like that or to see the pain in his eyes, the bewilderment, that he's hurting because he doesn't understand why, and she can't help with that right now.

"I'm sorry Connor, but I can't love you back."

She doesn't have to wait to know that there's nothing more to be said. She gets to her feet and lets them carry her and the weight of her secret farther and farther away from where she left her heart in a million pieces.


	5. Chapter 5

March comes without a cue, and some day in the middle Sarah wakes up to the gut-wrenching realization that it is Match Day, and the last day of her ED rotation, if that's relevant.

It's been going well, all things considered. She doesn't want to admit the two of them have been avoiding each other, not that it's not easy with her being thrown around all day by the ED staff as all other med students are. The times where they would work together on a patient has gone from several a day to once every few days, and that's about as much time as they spend in each other's presence aside from courteous greetings in the hallway and occasional goodnight wishes for when they have a run-in in the lounge. So no, they're not avoiding each other. They're simply colleagues, and barely even friends.

And as expected, the rumors died down in the blink of an eye. Joey even apologized to her with a slide of the bubonic plague. At the gesture she pretended, of course, to have been super excited about going into pathology and working alongside him every day for the rest of their lives, a lie that might as well be blown apart right this day.

She's been struggling all morning to muster the strength to hold a piece of paper, but there is no time. She feels like floating on thin air as she makes her way down to the lobby, Ethan's teasing echoing in her ears. The guy in front of her in line makes a somewhat idiotic wailing sound at the content of his envelop, which seems to stop her breathing for good.

"Reese, Sarah," that's not her voice, and she watches the women fish out the envelop from the stack as if watching a scene in a movie.

She peels away the seal and pulls out a little bit of the sheet, revealing the name of the hospital where she'll be spending her residency and possibly her entire career.

And she finds herself falling into this whole other world where nothing makes sense to her anymore and it's at this exact point in time that her future is torn clear off her past and has drifted a million miles away.

She had not planned for this to happen, but it did, and there's only herself to blame.

"Reese, how's your match?" Maggie asks quickly as Sarah passes her by in the ED.

"I got my first choice," she states, squeezing out a smile.

"Pathology?" April cuts in from the side.

"Congratulations," Ethan is not giving her a chance to say otherwise, and neither is Maggie.

"Incoming! Baghdad."

Then she hears his voice calling her name, and instantly slips into this deja-vu moment of that night when it had all started.

There's no time for second thoughts, and the last thing she laid eyes on before running off to Connor was that ridiculous smile on everyone's face.

The patient is an eighteen-year-old girl who hit a guard rail and flipped her car. She's bleeding heavily into her chest. After Sarah has managed to quickly tube the kid, she helps Connor with a thoracentesis to drain the blood, and, instead of moving on to the next patient with her usual, pretended nonchalance, she finds herself frozen on the spot, watching him go with the patient. She gets lost in the thought of how much she's going to miss this, and that every minute more she spends here with him feels like a knife made of sugar.

"Reese, you okay?" Will calls her from the nurse station, snapping her out of her trance. "It's not about pathology again is it?"

"No," she deadpans, though aware the question was rhetorical, pulling on a ghost of a smile that not even herself would buy into.

"Well, congrats I suppose," he gives a courteous response, disinterested in prying further, gathering his charts and walks away with barely a second look at her.

Right there and then she finds nothing harder than revealing a secret that no one believed was there, not even herself, one that she's been trying to escape for so long that it becomes a lie that haunts her, and distances her from the people that cared, until no one cares, for she's become a ghost that no one can see.

And no, at least that part's a truth: it's not about pathology, or her match, not just.

On the looks of it, the last day of her ED rotation goes by in flying colors. She's flooded by congratulations from literally everyone she knows, everyone but Connor—she hasn't had a chance to see him yet after the car crash patient—and Joey, who knows ahead of anyone that her name is not among the new staff down in pathology.

"What is this about, Reese?" He confronts her when she's sent down to run a lab, not giving her a chance to explain. "I thought you'd be the last person to betray me."

"Betray you?" She did not see this coming.

"Yes," he snaps, his voice rising. "You screwed up our future together when you quit pathology, and you never told me, left me hanging there looking at what, nothing. You never told anyone, down here, up there, why?"

Why? She's asked herself that question a thousand times. Everyday she wanted to say something, to tell someone, that it's just a maybe, but couldn't, because even that would make it somehow real, her leaving; when it was not, she'd been able to convince herself that this was where she would settle, for the rest of her life, sitting in a lab, with someone she loved and knew loved her back, someone her age, someone who liked the things that she did. Wasn't that all the life she ever wanted? Just to roll along with fate and make do with whatever life throws at her? It was, until she met Connor, and he showed her that she could be in a better place, if she wanted to. And she wanted to. Only she refused to believe that it was possible, that she could be better off in any place without him. Not that any of it matters now, for he's lost to her. She pushed him away, at the right time, and it was the right thing to do. So is this.

"We still _have_ a future, Joey," she says earnestly in her defense, and theirs. "We work in different places so what? We can—"

"Do we? Did you ever believe that?" Joey interrupts her, questioning, and gets no answer. He looks away, then deadpan at her. "This is about him, isn't it."

Her silent confession is all there is needed.

"You think I'm pissed at you going away or quitting pathology?" He remonstrates. "I respected you and your choices. I told you to get over yourself, remember? But you couldn't. You still don't know what you want. You can't be with him alright, so you go about making yourself into someone like him."

"I fought for it okay?" Finally she musters the courage to stand up for herself. "And I am leaving! You think this is easy for me?"

"Right. It was your choice, your doing, not your hormones'," he scoffs acerbically. "You can't imagine, how easy it'll be, once he finds out who you really are, Reese, a selfish, coward."

He practically spats the words at her, one by one, before he turns and walks away for good.

* * *

She's a ghost, That's what she's become, to everyone who had a fraction of their heart to befriend her, and none of them can see her, not for she really is. She floats down to the lounge as the curtain of the night calls and it marks the end of her time here.

Unexpectedly but unsurprised, she finds Connor slouching in the couch, alone, his hands clasped around a stethoscope under his chin, his eyes lowered to the floor. She stands for a moment, on the outside looking in, of slipping into this dejavú sense of some other night, lambent and distant in her memory, one that she loves to rewind, but would not allow herself to remake.

He sees her, as she walks in, as always, and blinks up at her, squeezing out a weary smile. Those sad, puppy eyes, they make her heart skip a beat and her stomach twist, and it's not just the butterflies.

Warily she sits down on the coffee table across from him. He blinks up at her, and smiles a weary smile which she returns with full attentiveness.

For a solid yet reassuring minute they share no words, no looks, only silence.

"Do you wanna tell me what happened?"

He draws in a breath, "the girl that flipped her car, she died."

She drops her shoulders, but does nothing to interrupt him. He needs to get it out, and she's willing to take all the weight of sorrow from him.

"She never stood a chance and - and I know that, it wasn't my fault but...she looked at me, and...the light went out behind her eyes."

His voice is coming from a thousand miles away, and all the emotions in it, they echo through time and space, and it elicits something deep inside of her. In that moment, what was between them does not matter, only the way they feel for each other, like all humans do.

"I'm so sorry Connor..." she squats down before him and places a hand over his. He does not flinch, but she can feel the tension slowly draining away from him. He refuses to look at her, and that's okay because she refuses to see the tears fall from his eyes.

Perhaps she is selfish, in just that moment, for thinking she cannot break him more when he's already broken.

"I have something to show you," she pulls away, turns and makes for her locker. She can feels his eyes on her as she retrieves the blue envelop. She hands it to him.

"Mayo Clinic," he reads out, looking up at her.

"I didn't plan on getting in," she hurries off an explanation. "I applied because I needed to prove to myself that -"

"You're leaving," he makes it more of a statement than a question. His voice is now bland, drained of emotions. She can't read his face.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell anybody sooner -"

"Stop," he's pleading more than demanding. He rubs a hand over his face and screws his eyes shut, the tremble in his other hand reflected in the quivering sheet of paper.

"All this time I thought that you didn't care..."

"What?" Now she's genuinely confused.

"You hurt me, Sarah," he blurts out, and it makes her wince. "When you said you were afraid that you'd end up in a life without me, that you didn't want me because I...could be dying."

"No way in the world I could've meant that."

Time seems to freeze and they're stuck in an eternal silence, sharing an everlasting, wordless gaze.

"Then stay."

She'd think she's become immune to it by now, the tenderness in his voice that makes him sound like a lost little boy. But no, it plucks at her heartstrings, tempting her to pull him into her arms.

"I can't," she swallows, deciding to defy once again her feelings for him. "Because if I do that, then it'll be impossible for me to leave."

There and then she puts it to an end, in the most nonchalant, impassive voice possible, while on the inside she hears the sound of her heart shattering, and she flusters to get out, to walk away before it ends and the grieving silence impels her to make the u turn.

* * *

The purse. It's pops into sight the moment Connor steps outside the ED, a blazing red against the gentle hue of the streetlights. The mother, crying hysterically into her husband's arms, clings onto it as if holding onto a fragment of her daughter's soul.

He comes to a halt at the sight of them, caught in one delusional trance of epiphany: life, joyous and sorrowful and ignorant and opulent and destitute and everything one second, the next blown to dust, to be forgotten, erased from existence altogether till nothingness is all there left. He's seen it day after day, yet ironically it wasn't until he's had to so abruptly confront his own mortality did he realize that life is short, until he could no longer see clear into the future did he really look in the moment, and frankly into the past, where he ended up looking at the people he'd let down and fade away—his mother, Claire—and those that are still here, Sarah, he'd be damned if he ever did that to her, even though it feels like they've drifted apart and are standing so far from each other that she cannot see him anymore. And that feeling is what really makes him lose grip of his very existence and wonder what in the world he could be doing just to live.

This is all messed up. He tries to shake it off of his head, throwing open his car door and tossing his bag in the passenger seat, and stuffs himself into the car. The world seems to go at the thump of the door, along with all his problems. Inside is a vacuum, where no sound can get in, no light. He sees her face, her eyes, they flicker through the white mist of his breath. He can't stop seeing them, the last glimmer of hope, that faded at once from her eyes as well as from his heart.

Tears boiling in his eyes, he lets them pour out, and turn to ice in the unconditioned air, but he doesn't feel the cold, no more than that inside of him. With one hand he grabs onto his nose and mouth, tight, as if he was ashamed to let those wrecking sobs escape his throat and be heard by someone out there, the sound of him drowning, as if someone cared.


	6. Chapter 6

The second she finds him curled up unconscious in the car seat, Ms. Goodwin has every reason to think he might as well be dead. She drops her purse right on the spot and jumps to grab the door, frustrated to find it locked.

"Dr. Rhodes," desperately she slaps on the window, almost shouting his name. "Connor!"

Just then he stirs, and she thinks she can never be more relieved in her life than right now.

"Are you okay?" She raises her voice, warily looking him up through the frosted glass.

He blinks open his eyes. They look bleary and his skin is pale, though other than that he doesn't seem to be in any physical distress. She waits for him to come to terms of his surroundings, and ends up delightfully amused at the panic in his eyes that makes him look like a little bear caught at the poacher's gunpoint.

"m-Ms Goodwin," he straightens up in an eyeblink, and screws his eyes shut against what appears to be a headache. He fumbles for the door lock and she notices that he's shivering.

She yanks open the door once he unlocks it and reaches in to place a hand on his forehead, "you're freezing cold! Did you sleep through the night like that?"

He pulls away from her touch, avoiding her gaze, and drags himself out of the car with one hand gripping on the doorframe. The head rush has him thinking he's actually gonna pass out for good.

"Sorry I'm late for work," he mumbles. Only then does he notice she has a hand on his shoulder steadying him, and it makes him blush with shame and lower his eyes without one more word.

"Don't be. You're not," she reassures him in her usual composed voice. "Why don't you take the day off, Dr. Rhodes. Go home. Get some sleep."

Connor is fully awake by now, though still lightheaded and cold as hell. He entwines his arm for warmth and in defense, returning the stare of the chief to find no trace of reproach in her eyes, just worry. As much as he appreciates her being considerate, the idea of him staring at the wall in his condo being haunted by every messed-up shit that happened yesterday sheerly terrifies him. So he sucks it up the best he can and takes a deep breath, "I'm okay. I'm good to work."

"Are you sure?" She asks sincerely, despite doubt written all over her face.

"Yeah," he has to muster all the strength left in him to pull on an energized look.

"Well at least go take a shower and make yourself warm," she says, patting him dotingly on the arm, twice, before taking her leave.

Little do they know, neither the chief nor the trauma surgeon, that they're being spied on, by a med student, who's sitting in a car a few spaces down the parking lot with a cheesy grin across her face thinking that Ms. Goodwin looks too much like a mother bear to Connor and that it's simply beyond adorable.

And that's how Sarah ends up walking into the first day of her surgical rotation with a giddy smile on her face. That positivity seems to touch every one of her new colleagues, all of whom apparently takes her as the energized, sociable kind of person quite to the contrary of herself, which is not at all in a bad way, she decides, that her day couldn't have started off better with everything exciting and new to take her mind of off whatever it was on completely. It's like stepping into a whole new realm, of lonely corridors and cloistered operating rooms solemnly lit by alien blue lights. And she's found herself to have grown a somewhat clingy, not entirely healthy liking to this environment, for its tranquility and reclusion, its orderliness and the uncalled-for need of human interaction, and perhaps the most dangerously delusive sense of escape it's granted her.

As the day drags on in her dreamlike, stagnant state of mind, it slowly begins to take a toll on her. The long hours of standing next to the resident yanking at the contractor is threatening to paralyze her muscles on the spot and practically the only breaks she gets are trips down to pathology where the lighting and the look on her ex-boyfriend's face is so grim that she might as well could've stumbled into hell. Worse: those emotion-tangled memories of yesterday start to wash over her, to fill in for the post-adrenaline emptiness of late afternoon. She longs more than ever for her day to come to an end, for all she can bring herself to do right now is crash-landing in her apartment and curling up in bed.

Once again the OR team is alerted of an incoming trauma and to prepare for an emergent thoracotomy. By the time she's scrubbed, gowned and gloved and made it to her designated position at the rear end of the table, the patient is already there being prepped. Having been brought in by chopper and straight to the OR, a teenage boy who shot himself in the chest, is bleeding out by the second.

"Reese," Beth is reminding her, and she remembers that her resident was assigned to another case about fifteen minutes ago, which means she "gets to" directly assist the attending surgeon on this one. Sighing, she glances up from the mind-scrambling array of instruments toward the scrub room, transfixed at the sight of him. Connor Rhodes has been the last person on her mind all day long, and frankly though she has no idea how she's managed that, it's never occurred to her that she still has to work with him, probably more than she did then back in the ED. Perhaps it's that she's been trying so hard to shut him out that it's felt like she already left.

The gaze they share for however brief a moment feels suffocating as if they were actually underwater, in the mild depth of the ocean where sunlight begins to dim. She gets the impression that he's physically struggling for breath as he seems to be in worse shape than she is. Knowing painfully inside that she has to be strong for him this one more time, she breathes in and takes two steps to the right into the spotlight, skin bleached underneath, a thin fabric between life and death.

She hands him the scalpel, and watches him slice through the skin and saw into the sternum in a brutal, somewhat frantic manner. There is no time to lose. She can feel the adrenaline kicking in once again, and at the time nothing between them matters more than the life in their hands.

"Help me spread his ribs," Connor is saying, in a strained voice. She jumps and grabs the retractor. With effort they stuck the metal in. With the sound of ribs breaking, a dark bluish fluid-filled pericardial sac is revealed.

"Metz and debakeys," he demands, and starts to incise the pericardium. Sarah watches in awe as the gel of blood breaks down into the chest cavity and is replaced by a freshly oozing source. She scrabbles for a suction device as he trims away tissues to visualize a hole in the left pulmonary artery one centimeter from its origin on the heart.

"Hold this," he hands her the clamps after placing them across the injured vessel, and she leans in and holds them carefully so that the open edges remain aligned, and he goes in with the suture.

"BP's dropping," Marty's warning echoes the alarm sounding across the monitors. "You gotta stop the bleeding now. I can hardly keep up."

"Thank you Marty I'm almost there," Connor replies, his voice unbelievably calm, and she finds it impossible to panic when his self-poise emanates an immense power that stills the water around them. "Reese, follow me, eyes on the field."

She does, and never before in her life has she felt so strongly in the present. The world seems to ebb away and all that there is is the beating heart in front of them. One second she tries to grab the suction with a third imaginary hand, the next she realizes that he doesn't need one, as the blood magically stops pooling in the chest as he ties off the knot around the leaky vessel. The beeping quickly quiets down, and when in silent accord they each removes one of the clamps, it holds.

"Nice work, Dr. Rhodes," Marty applauds.

Sarah feels an almost euphoric wave of relief wash over her, though nothing can be more draining than the lack of adrenaline that comes after. She takes a step back, exhaling, and looks up only to notice that Connor is breathing a little more heavily than normal, leaning aback with his head down. Although no one else seems to notice, she can't help but worry that he might actually pass out.

"Dr. Rhodes," she calls and he lifts his head to look at her, his eyes subtly glazed. Something is definitely not right, not that she can bring herself to point out, and she ends up asking, "do you want me to close?"

"No," he says after a sluggish pause, with a stiff shake of head as he straightens up again. "The kid's too young to have a scar."

Slightly stung by his remark, she takes a moment to mull over the doubt that he was attacking her, and then realizes he was in no mood to get personal, not that she'd feel it unjustified given now that he carries the living proof of her disastrous suturing.

Together they pull the sternum close. They work through layers of muscles and fat, and as soon as the last inch of skin is stapled, Connor seems to be more than ready to throw in the towel. He orders the patient to be patched up and sent to the ICU, before taking his hurried leave.

Even if anyone was to admit something was off, they wouldn't do it out loud. Sarah reasons that everyone has had their fair share of irresponsible surgeons who can't care less, but not Dr. Rhodes. She knows it and they know it, that he's the one to always see the patient through, even wait for them to wake up if he has the time, and never miss a meticulous post-op workup. Now that was beyond an act of inattention. That was comparable to malpractice.

Impulsion-driven, she excuses herself and darts out of the OR after him, leaving the mess to be cleaned up by the rest of the team and not caring what they'd think of her. Out in the corridor, she finds Connor leaning against the wall with his head buried in between both arms, cringing in the throes.

She calls his name. He straightens up and half turns toward her. She can see that he's sweating like a sponge and his eyes are bloated and watery. Without a word she moves closer and puts the back of her hand to his forehead, "you're warm."

He quails from her touch, "I'm fine. It's nothing. I just need to sleep."

"I'm not letting you drive home," she crosses her arm.

"So, are we doing this again."

"I've got an early shift."

They stand, staring at each other, deadpan, too wiped out to emote.

"On-call room, now," she uncrosses her arm, turning away, hoping she's said it assertively enough that he would follow, and he does. Together they make a left turn out into the ward.

"I saw you, this morning in the parking lot," she says as they wander past the nurse station, which has mostly emptied out.

"You did?" A rhetorical question. Neither of them has the slightest idea as to the meaning of this conversation.

"You should be more careful," she finally says—but not the other part, not out loud—if you are infected then this could kill you.

He says nothing, striding ahead of her and spins around to grab a bottle of water from the fridge on their way in. She sees him to bed, watching as he crawls in under the dirty old covers that don't get washed for days, but it'll have to do for now. Then she walks over to the coffee machine in the corner and pours herself a cold brew, and gulps down just enough to get her through the next couple hours.

"Where are you going?"

She turns her head over her shoulder to him. They lock eyes through the black metal frame of the bunk bed. He's turned on his side, his eyes glistening in the dim, eerie light.

"Post-op," she deadpans, stiffly making to the door, and in a peculiar trance thinks she might as well be a robot.

She goes to find their patient in the recovery wing. Absentminded, she breezes through the post-op workup in record speed, earning a somewhat amazed compliment from her resident. Even then, it's well past midnight by the time she starts barging back to the on-call room, roaming the empty hallways, part of the hospital she believes she's never seen at this hour: cold lights burning low, everything dead-looking and forlorn.

That's when she comes to questioning when and on what frantic whim did she sign up for any of this, a surgical rotation for the final module before graduation, and then a residency? When her pathology classmates are probably dozing off in their homes, what's she doing here? Then she remembers. It was that picture-perfect evening celebration at the Hawaiian bar, to which she only went because Connor had invited her, even though she barely knew half the people there, and then by some miracle it was the first time ever that she felt like she fitted in.

She shakes her head to clear it, well aware that self-doubt is of the least use right now, and that she has three hours to sleep if she skips morning wash and breakfast altogether.

She tries not to wake him as she climbs up the squeaky bunk, but he's already stirring.

"Hey," he grumbles in a drowsy voice.

"Hey," she greets him from up above, rolled over on her belly at the edge of the bed. "I though you might like to know that our patient is doing well. You saved him."

"We did," he corrects her. "Thankfully."

Then they're silent for a while, not in any uncomfortable way. Traffic noise, distant and underwater, muffled by those sleazy windows, through which the city lights filter in and cast squares on their coverlets. He's awake and she can't sleep, and it feels as if they were the last two humans on a deserted spaceship, ever so consciously aware of each other's waking presence.

"You're going to be okay. I know that."

He seems startled at her sudden declaration. She hears him sharply draw in a breath. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because you don't deserve it, and I'd like to believe that life is fair?"

He thinks about if for a minute, and then, "who doesn't."

And he drifts off, eventually, his breathing steadies and evens out, but still raspy from the cold and intermittent with short bursts of burbling coughs. At one point, she finds that if she listens very hard, it echoes the room and all the way into her sleep, along with her own voice in her head, words unspoken: because I don't know any other way, don't know what I'd do if I lost you, because it is hope that we need, and I'm finding it in a promise.


	7. Chapter 7

Connor wakes in the dreary daylight that has fallen over the room. There's an almost unreal stillness as if the place was a spaceship crash landed on some remote, deserted planet.

He's got a splitting headache, and a temperature judging by the burning sensation at the back of his eyelids whenever he closes them, and not the slightest idea where Sarah has gone. She took the time to make her bed up there, and he finds himself smiling in amazement at her responsibleness, always cleaning up after herself, in life and in work, unlike almost every other intern and resident in this hospital.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he grabs for the half bottle of water and finishes it, taken by this wave of dejavú that he'd made the exact same move at some fixed point in his life, a point seemingly distant and close at the same time that it makes you lose grasp of time, for just the moment of those few heartbeats, yet something's missing and he can't quite take grasp of it.

He checks his phone, text from Sarah, somewhat a surprise on top of their clean message history. The line had been silent ever since the second night she followed him home and they swapped numbers, once made him wonder why they did it in the first place.

I'll be on my shift, in case you might be wondering.

He was, not knowing why his first instinct upon waking up was to look for her but frankly that was all he could think of for a while. He mulls over the words for a few seconds, and then taps on the screen:

Good to know.

He hopes that sounded playful enough. Since when has he become so unsure of himself?

As he walks out into the parking lot, squinting his eyes against the blazing sun, the sight of a red-coated figure leaning against his car leaves him astound on the spot.

"Connor," she calls out to him in a voice slightly aloof and disapproving, snapping him out of the delusion that he might as well be hallucinating. She steps forward, closing the awkward space between them, "When were you gonna tell me?"

"Claire, I'm sorry," flustering he hurries off an excuse. "It's just been really busy around here and—"

"It looks like I need to find out that you're probably dying through your girlfriend."

He did not brace himself for that.

"She's not—she's not my girlfriend," he snorts, pulling on something between a grin and a grimace.

"Then who is she, your mom? Cuz the way she was all over you like that? I would've bought it, had our mother not died twenty years ago."

He blinks, trying to ignore how much her words are hurting him, though in truth not as much as those unspoken: and then you left me too.

"I wasn't sure how you would react."

It's just like he remembers, that there's nothing he says that couldn't get his big sister to give way as long as it's the truth, because how could she resist, those puppy eyes, how could anyone resist?

Claire lowers her eyes, her arms unfold and her tone softens as with a tilt of her head she motions at his car behind her, "Look—let me just take you home."

He gives a silent half nod, reaching in his bag for the car key and hands it to his sister, who then rounds over to the driver's side and they both slide into the front, throwing the doors shut in one synchronized thump. The sound leaves them stunned for a moment just long enough to take a breath in and out and fasten the seatbelts, before Claire starts the car and they pull out onto the road.

The silence starts to grow more and more uneasy as they race across town wrapped in the low and hypnotic hum of the engine. Flouncing around in his seat, Connor decides to sit curled up on his right side with his cheek pressed to the cold glass, screwing his eyes shut against the splitting headache made worse by the sun burning red through his eyelids.

"Hey, you okay?" Claire manages to blurt out at one point, as if she could care less than just making sure he's alive, yet worry is ostensibly rising in her voice as he opens his eyes a slit and gives a stiff nod. "We can grab some lunch on the way if you'd like it."

"'m not hungry," a soft, almost inaudible grumble is all she gets, yet enough to melt her heart and break those years' worth of ice between them.

She follows him into his apartment, where she lingers a brief moment in the foyer to take in the furnishing—not as spacious and decorated as her place but with the same sleek arrogance of a Rhodes's—before making a beeline for the kitchen where Sarah told her to find the med kit.

By the time she finds him in his bedroom, Connor has already settled himself in bed and she catches him rolling his eyes on her as she enters carrying the kit and a steamy mug.

"I can do this myself," he looks up at her, jivey with a bemused look.

"I know," she reaches over to grab another pillow for him to sit propped up on it. "But if I'm getting it right, then even something as minor as the flu can be life-threatening for someone who's immunocompromised like you probably are. Open up."

She sits down on the edge of the bed and slides the thermometer into his mouth. The grumpy bear look on his face makes her chuckle inside and for a heartbeat it feels as if they were little again. In a gentle voice she says to him, "and don't take it out on Sarah. She is technically trying to save your life, because whatever it is going on between you two, she does care about you."

He has no idea what to make of that, thankfully though he's literally biting on the excuse not to say anything.

"Okay," she goes to take out the thermometer as it beeps, and brings him the cup. "Drink it up."

The flavor hits him, a gut-wrenchingly familiar sweetness he's associated with those distant, not-all-pleasant childhood memories—Mom's homemade recipe, warm lemon juice with honey—memories he'd resented and cherished and then tried to discard.

"Try to get some sleep," standing up, Claire puts away the thermometer and takes the empty mug from the nightstand before leaving the room.

* * *

Sarah would consider it excellent timing, to get the call right when she's got a window before her next surgery. She picks up the second Claire's name pops up on the screen.

"Hey Sarah?"

"How is he?" She almost immediately blurts out and regrets doing it just a tiny bit.

"He's asleep. He's temp was ninety-nine point six and I gave him plenty of fluids."

"Okay. Good," nervously she goes over the textbook one more time in her head.

"Is there anything else I should be worried about?"

"Not for now," she reassures her. "Call me if if you need me okay?"

Hanging up the phone, she sighs a weary sigh leaning back against the wall of the corridor with her head up staring at the ceiling. Her frustration is not nearly as much due to the crazy hours of work as it is because of her longing to be there for him, all while being torn between the guilt for having walked away when he needed her the most and the need to keep telling herself that it was the right thing to do, which she knows is a lie because deep down there's no denying her love for him, and the fact that despite everything between them, she still cares.

Her pager beeps, cutting off her stream of thoughts, and so she steels herself and heads back into the OR. This time she's shadowing her resident in assisting Dr. Downey with a standard aortic valve replacement, through which she's correctly answered all the questions those superior surgeons threw at her and without second thoughts. She walks out of surgery proud and content, thanking herself for having blown off lunch break to study.

"Reese, nice work in there."

She freezes on the spot, upon hearing a word of praise from the premiere cardiac surgeon in the country.

"Thank you."

"Dr. Rhodes spoke quite highly of you," Downey is saying, straightforward but not at all lacking sincerity. "Now I see that perhaps you aren't as overrated as I suspected."

That she doesn't know what to make of other than to pretend she didn't hear.

"Take that as a compliment," the older man reassures her with an amiable laugh. "It's just uh, a fellow paying attention to a med student, is not a thing you see every day. You two close?"

"Not anymore," she slurs hoping that he wouldn't actually hear what she's saying.

"Well," not indicating whether he did hear, or maybe not caring. "My hope is that both of you find a way to keep work as work and life as life."

She stands pinned to the spot, long after Downy is long gone, determined that if she wanted to see Connor, now she might as well not go.

* * *

Claire did not see the need to call Sarah again, as Connor had seemed a lot better when she woke him up for dinner at nightfall, so she simply briefed the med student by text and was then told not to worry.

And now she and Connor are sitting at the table silently munching on their meal. She has made them spaghetti for two reasons: one it wasn't like she could find anything else in the pantry and two, it was their mother's favorite choice of a meal; well the second one is really more of a consequence given how it brings back memories that neither of them was willing to dwell on.

By the time they've finished eating, Claire decides it has to be brought up at one point or another.

"Connor, listen, I've been meaning to talk to you," she starts and watches him feign an innocent look. "I'm glad that you came home, but—"

"Have you told Dad?" He lets whatever the first to come to mind roll off he's tongue just to stop her from saying what he knows she has to say.

"Do you want me to?" She sounds overly attentive and dead serious, and it's annoying, but it gets him thinking about it all the same.

"No," as much as he wanted to make the old man feel guilty, still he decides that he doesn't deserve to know, not until the nail's in the coffin.

"Then I won't," she says earnestly looking into his eyes, and he looks away. "Look, Connor, I know it's a lot that you're going through, and I want to help, but you're making it difficult by avoiding me."

"I'm not avoiding you."

"It's about Dad, isn't it," she practically ignores his futile attempt to lie. "You hate that I don't hate him."

She had him. It's true.

With a slight twist of her head she looks down at her plate, easing her tone a little, "I don't want to go there, okay? That is an entirely different conversation and this is about you." She looks up at him in the eye, "you could've answered my calls. You could've told me what happened. You could've at least talked to me."

"About what?" He had genuinely felt like there was nothing he could say to break the amount of ice that's built up between them from years of not talking.

"About the fact that you were afraid because anyone would be? That you didn't want to be alone, that you missed her more than ever?" He pulls away in angst but she's not letting him off easy. "I know you do because I do, all the time."

She takes in the anguished frown on his face, the pain visible in his eyes, holding his gaze despite the ache in her heart.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice thick with sorrow.

"I am too. I know that I'm as much to blame as you," she softens her voice, looking down at her hands folded on the table, then back at him. "What I'm saying, is that you have to let someone in, Connor, because you can't run from your feelings the way you ran from your problems, it's just not possible, not forever."

Silence falls, but it's not as endurable as he feared now that he's actually seriously considering what she said. By the time he has thought it through, and as if she knew he has, she points with her eyes at the top of the fireplace, on which stood his metal museum of spinning tops.

"That's a nice collection you got there," she remarks. "Mom would love it."

"Yeah she would," he says lightly, appreciating the small, shiny objects bathed in the warm hue of the city lights out there.

"Well," Claire has got her cheery voice back, collecting their plates as she rises to her feet, and makes for the dish washer. Connor follows her with his eyes until she turns and says to him over her shoulder something unexpected. "Do you want to watch something?"

And so they spend the next couple hours hugging themselves on the couch sharing a pack of Lays while aimlessly flicking through the channels, just like they did on those nights after their mom died when Dad wasn't home. That being the first time for Connor to feel somewhat reassuringly enlightened at how easily things can be picked up right where they'd been left and it's like they haven't changed at all, is for sure not to be the last.

By the time it gets to Jimmy Fallon, Claire starts upon realizing how late it is and begins nudging her little brother to bed, and Connor goes to pretend he's not enjoying the doting, nope, not at all. Even then, how could she miss the secretive smirk at the corner of his pouted lips, or the subtle flicker of happiness in his eyes? She watches blissfully as he tucks himself in under the comforter, leaving it purposefully lower at his belly. She leans in and pulls it up for him, uttering in his ear the most lulling one of a whisper from long ago,

"Goodnight, honey bear."

* * *

**_More Rheese coming along the way! Promise._**


	8. Chapter 8

"And he stabbed you," Claire is finishing Connor's story, in a tone perhaps a little too snappy. "I can't believe you're not pressing charges against him."

"What would be the point?" Connor shrugs, filling two cups with hot coca, and brings them around to the dining table. "The guy's already going through a lot. Putting him behind the bars is not gonna change anything."

"It's gonna make him pay for what he did to you," Claire says over her shoulder, in the middle of making pancakes, their mom's routine choice of breakfast. "Cuz if he's not a lunatic, he's a criminal."

"Now you sound just like Dad," he complains, jesting. At that she scoffs, bringing around the pancakes on two plates. "Besides, I could just as well be fine, you know that, right?"

"I wouldn't be too hopeful," she smacks her plate down on the table, unintentionally. It's not like she's that upset. She's just worried about him, he knows that, but there isn't really anything either of them can do about it.

"I'm getting tested today," he tells her. Surprise flits her eyes. "Should get the results back in a few days."

She nods in acknowledgement, "I'll take you."

And he's well aware there's no protesting against that.

* * *

It's agonizing, Connor decides, to be in the hospital as a patient, to not be on the dominant side. In just half an hour he's had enough of pity looks from people he barely knew as well as attentive interrogations from his colleague friends, and that is actually giving him more anxiety than having to find out about his test result. The blood draw was a week ago, and he's had enough time to brace himself knowing that in this case no news might very well be bad news.

But then it's the one of many things for which you can never be ready.

Another half hour later he finds himself standing on the edge of the rooftop fiddling with that slip of paper as the night is beginning to fall over the city.

The result itself isn't what's bothering him. It's negative, just as he expected it might be. In fact he was equally expecting either of the outcomes, for between the extent of the exposure he had and the viral load of the patient there was simply no way to predict which one was more likely, but problem is, he's been so worked up about the worse—buckling down every book and research he could find that he's pretty much the expert by now—that he has hardly prepared for the better. Truth is in the past three weeks he was entirely consumed by the fear of his impending mortality that he hardly looked at life beyond a certain point, and that point is now.

Birdseye view. It makes you realize just how small your life is, the good the bad the happy and the sad, all just a tiny flicker lost in an unfathomable mass of lights. For a while he thought he'd risen above this world, that the whole thing was a wakeup call to tell him that life is short, and since he has done things differently, with a somewhat ridiculous complex that goes like: screw it, it's now or never.

And of course, that was all entirely nonsense. All of a sudden he finds himself tossed back into an existence where life just drags on indefinitely, where he's left terrified and at a complete loss for what to do with it.

"Connor..." someone calls him from behind. The voice he knows all too well, and not just whose voice, but what the person is feeling he can tell.

She's nervous, worried, unsure of herself, as she usually is, but more intensely so. Scrupulously she approaches him, and leans on her side against the barrier, facing him, ostensible inquiry in her eyes. He smiles at her an assuring smile, handing her the slip of paper. Her brows unfurl as she reads it.

"Connor, this is good news," she exclaims, sounding more shocked than relieved, her eyes sparkling as they meet his.

"It is," he says with a soft smile.

"But you—I thought..." she trails off, and looks again at the results. He waits for it to settle in, for her to arrive at his state of mind, for the moment when they find themselves at the bottom of the pitfall.

And there it is: what are we doing now?

"So..." he turns away for a second, leaning in on the barrier. "I guess now things are gonna go back to normal, huh?"

She looks at him, clueless of what to say.

"With us, I mean," he says.

"What about us?" As if she didn't know all too well.

"Well, for a start, your not wanting to be with me because you don't want to be sad about leaving."

"Why, are you're making it look like it was my fault?" She snaps. "You're the one who started it."

"Me?" He says grimly. "You followed me home, twice."

"I was only trying to help," she's desperate to defend herself. "as a friend!"

"So you mean to tell me that there was never anything between us?"

It got her, that calm, scarily sensible voice of his. She can hear in it just how much he is hurting on the inside and it breaks her heart, like it always does, to see him in pain. Her mind dwells back on how they became close in the first place. He was hurt and scared that he was dying and she chose to be there for him, because how could she not, because she—it's not the first time she has felt lost in her own feelings—loved him?

And he's right. It was her that started it, without even realizing she did, and for that she owes him to get it right.

"When you said you loved me," she blurts out and his eyes snap right into hers. "You didn't mean it, not like that, not when I was dating someone else and—we both know it was not what you meant."

"Doesn't make it not true."

She sees it in his eyes and hears it in his voice. Fear, pain, sorrow, remorse. She loses count of how many times she has picked up the pieces of her heart and put it back together only to find it in pieces again.

"It was your way of saying you needed me, wasn't it?" Even if the question was not rhetorical, the answer is written in that tiny glimmer of tears in his eyes. "I know because I see you, not just you as the apparently smart and capable and attractive guy that everyone else likes, but the other you, the one terrified on the inside, yearning for a home that was lost to you a long time ago...and you needed me, when no one ever did."

His eyes are locked on hers the entire time. She bravely holds his gaze but then he's the one to pull away, and as he blinks for the first time in a while she sees the tears rolling out of his eyes. He refuses to look at her, and instead fixes his stare at the streams of traffic down below. Quietly she turns and leans in with her elbows on the safety rail and watches with him. Twilight city. White noise. The lives of people going around in a dizzying whirlwind.

"I was...I was a mess, and you," he says and she turns to him, tear marks on his face, his voice thick but calm. "You were just...there. How do I ever pay you back?"

"How do you know you haven't already?"

That took him aback. She can see it in his eyes. He's trying to blink back tears but his eyes won't leave hers. Sarah has never imagined just how much emotion can be revealed in a person's eyes. Though it feels like a lifetime for her in reality it's merely a matter of seconds, a flicker that's left its permanent mark in her memory.

There and then he reaches out and pulls her into a hug, or an embrace, or maybe both. It doesn't matter now. She never realized how much she needed it, the sheer presence of him all around her, a sound reassurance that everything's okay. She holds him close. He buries his face in the crook of her arm wrapped around his shoulder. She has the other arm lower around his waist the same way he does with her, and keeps rubbing circles on his back until she feels the tension in his shoulders easing up.

"Thank you," he whispers. Hereafter they pull apart, sharing an affectionate look. She's more than delighted to see his eyes light up again. There she knows that he feels loved and cared for, and it makes her happier than anything else in the world ever could.

She lowers her head and looks down, shying away with the giddy smile that has appeared on her face, and then she looks up at him again, through a lock of hair fallen over her eye. She pushes it back behind her ear, "Connor the thing is, I wasn't ready for us. I mean, I was in a relationship but even after it had ended I wasn't immediately ready to take on a new one, and it wasn't just that. What we had—have, it feels so much more and it terrifies me and I wanted to run away and—" she stops to take a breath, well aware that she's rambling again, but he just listens, so she takes the time to mull over her words. "I'm sorry, for having walked out on you."

"You haven't," he reassures her, teasingly. "Maybe you did a little bit but you always came back."

"That's true. Maybe I just find you irresistible."

That doesn't come out right. She didn't mean to flirt. In fact she didn't even think she had the ability to flirt, until she finds herself doing it with Connor Rhodes.

"I will take that as a compliment," he responds in all seriousness, yet it doesn't stop a hearty grin finding its way to his lips and eyes.

"Well, the first time we didn't really start out the right way did we," he says a moment later, looking into her eyes with all sincerity. "So, what do you say we start over this time. Sarah Reese, would you like to go on a date with me?"

"Yes," she nods, her smile bigger than ever. They deserve a second chance, she thinks to herself. In fact they owe it to themselves.

"Not Molly's though," she adds after an awkward pause.

"Definitely not Molly's," he knows what she's saying, that both of them have felt closed-in for long enough that the idea of sitting in the gloom of the bar seems way too suffocating.

That's how they end up in that tiki bar by the riverside. It's odd, that the moment she steps into the sunset glow she finds herself in the middle of an overwhelming sense of dejavú as if someone fast-backwarded the tape and erased the last six weeks clean making it look like it never happened. There she sits transfixed in her bewilderment staring really hard at a point where the bridge pier meets the water, torn over the feeling that if she turns and look to the right she'd see Marty and Beth and the rest of the surgical team bunched up around the bar, yet too afraid to look, of waking up from a dream too good and bad to be real if she did.

"Sarah," he's calling her name but she's not sure for how many times. She jumps and meets his eyes for a split second across the table. He's looking at her with a tilt in his head and a slight frown, silently asking if she's okay.

"Yeah," she says in a clipped voice. "I was just thinking, there's a lot that's happened since last time we were here and then—"

"It feels like it never did? I am completely with you there."

All she can do is nod, amazed at how seamlessly he picks up on her thoughts and takes the words right out of her mouth.

"Ah, there it is," Connor remarks as their drinks come in those tiki diablo mugs topped with red orchid flowers.

"Aloha!" An overly fervent voice comes from the side and before she has the chance to brace herself an orchid lei has made its way around her neck.

"Oh thank you!" Startled, she reflexively exclaims a gratitude, and in somewhat a fluster grabs at the flowers and looks to Connor with wide eyes. "It's real."

"Any friend of Connor's!" The bartender fires off a string of laughter, reaching over to shake hands with Connor, who's practically grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

"Sarah this is Keoni. He owns this place."

"Pleasure to meet you," she says in a jubilant voice, feeling her eyes light up at the amicable aura.

"Pleasure's all mine, and it's good to see you bro."

"It's good to see you too," Connor replies, his grin now temporized into a sincere, heart-warming smile that gives her the butterflies even when he's not looking at her.

"Well, I'll leave you lovebirds to it," says Keoni throwing a wink at them before turning away, and the two burst out laughing, at what in particular they have no idea.

"Do you know what that means?" She points a look at the small neon-lighted signage hanging off the thatching. Three Dots and a Dash. That's the name of the bar. She wonders how she missed it the first time.

"Keoni said it was some sort of Morse code—" he stops, rummaging in memory.

"—for the letter V," from there she deciphers the code, having taught it to herself on a whim back in high school. "It was used to symbolize victory in World War II."

"Well in that case," he raises a toast. "To victory."

She echos his words, and they clink their mugs. There's a solid, humble quality to the sound unlike that of glass clashing, and it sounds familiar and reassuring, in the same way that the sweetness of the Aloha Felicia tickles the roof of her mouth. She tries to take it in small sips so that it lasts longer, while looking out onto the river where the bridge and the boats are beaming and the entire bar is bathed in the balmy orange light.

She tells him all about the surgical cases she's been through these days, the good the bad the exiting and the weird ones, and she can tell how much he's itching to get back to it. He tells her about his day spent with Claire, about how surprisingly well they get along that it's almost like the old times, and she nearly laughs herself out of her chair over the embarrassing stories of his childhood. And by the time they've finished their drinks he drags her down to the dance pool where the Hawaiian folk music on playing is Dr. Downey's favorite, and there she finds herself wriggling around with him even though she has never had any non-awkward dancing before in her life, which is fair enough because she has never been this happy either. Hours go by in an eyeblink and they don't realize it's getting late until the crowds are starting to clear out. Thankfully neither of them has work tomorrow. When it comes to the point where they say goodbye, he asks if she wants to spend the night with him, seeing as his apartment is a shorter cab ride away.

She doesn't say yes and she doesn't say no. She simply smiles one of her heart-melting smiles as her hands somehow find their way up to his cheeks and her feet decide to go on tiptoe. She's pulling herself close to him, so close that she looks into his eyes and feels as if that smear of dark blue was the entire world, and all of a sudden she feels giddy, like losing her balance over that yearning edged she was, is afraid to fall from. There and then she stops herself, and swirls. She feels her lips on the skin of his cheek, and there's the point where she gets snapped right back into reality.

She drops her hands and caresses one of his arms, taking his hand as she says to him, "goodnight Connor."

"Night," he mumbles and she pulls away, her hand slipping from his.

He is left standing there watching her silhouette dissolve into the night, his heart feeling ever so full as it does empty.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Rheese cuddles AGAIN! **_

Life has been great for Sarah Reese.

She got her dream job. She enjoys her work. She's well on her way to becoming a surgeon.

And she's dating Connor Rhodes.

As in friend dates. Don't get any wrongs ideas. Although apparently the entire staff seemed to do it at first, but the rumors died down as quickly as it had started when people realized there really wasn't any romantic sort of thing going on between the two.

And that's how Sarah and Connor became the most unlikely pair of best friends at Med.

She's a med student and he's doing a double fellowship, and their working schedules are hardly aligned. When they do get the same shift they spend loads of time together, either in the operating room or doing research in the library or grabbing a coffee in the cafeteria. On late nights she sometimes sleeps over at his place, where she has practically taken the spare bedroom as her own, scattered all over with her books and clothes and stuff. And when they happen to get the same day off, they go down to the park, or the museum, or the harbor for a long nice walk, talking for hours on end and they tell each other everything.

But that's coming to an end. Soon she will be flying to Minnesota and spend the next five years and who knows the rest of her life there.

Soon becomes a month, a week, and now it's a day. This is it, her last day at Gaffney Chicago Med Center. And for the record, it's starting out to be a good one.

"Is your mom flying in for tonight?" Connor asks her as they come into work together.

"No, she's got an early day tomorrow. Doesn't want to red-eye back. She sent me a check."

"Well then, after the ceremony, how about, you and I go out and celebrate."

"Depends on how late it is," she says, pretendedly grudging. "I have some packing to do tomorrow."

"Sarah, it's your graduation. You've earned it." When she doesn't answer he adds, "we are going to say goodbye, aren't we?"

"Yeah, of course," she assures him as well as herself, that it's the right thing to do, even though she doesn't want to.

"Okay I'll see you later," he gives her a pat on the arm before ducking into the lounge.

Her morning goes without a hitch. She has just finished rounds when she gets the page. And everything just falls by the wayside.

It's almost like that time with the suicidal teenager all over again. He tries. He really is trying to do his best. There isn't too much she can do and she hates being helpless when he needs her help. In the end he manages to stop the bleeding but Downey is far from being out of the woods. The next twenty-four hours are critical and they need to keep a close eye out for any new bleeds.

"Sarah," he calls her back just as she's leaving the room. He looks at her as if to say something that he can't.

"It's okay. You don't have to come."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'll be fine. You stay with him okay?"

He nods, pursing his lips and blinking in thanks. She backs out of the room. She knows he'd never forgive himself should the worst happen, and she'd never forgive herself because the last thing she wants is to cause him pain. But no matter how many times she tells herself it's the right thing to do, still her disappointment cannot be put into words.

* * *

They're asleep. Both of them. She stands in the door for a while. The lights are dimmed. It's quiet like it usually is in hospital rooms at night, too quiet that she can almost hear their breathing. That, plus the beeping of the monitor, is about the only sign of life. Not to say that it's depressing, not at all. There's just a pleasant stillness in the air.

She tiptoes over to the closet and grabs a clean blanket and takes it to Connor. He's sleeping curled up in the sofa chair. She drapes drapes it over him so that it covers up to his chest and bare arms. He doesn't stir, the look on his face ever so peaceful. She leans in and presses her lips to his forehead, just a light touch, a ghost of a kiss, before she goes.

The next morning Connor wakes up finding himself covered in a blanket, but his brain is too sleep deprived to pick up on the oddity, and it takes him a while to remember that it was Sarah. She woke him. He's always a light sleeper, but he didn't want her to know he was awake, or she'd be dragging him to the on-call room or stay and wait with him. Things were just simpler that she thought he was asleep when she left him, with a kiss.

He goes and gets a lei of jasmine for Downey, a little parting gift, not what he intended it to be but it is, just like the little keepsake he means to give to her for graduation. He's never been good at saying goodbyes and all of a sudden he finds himself doing it to the two people that are closest to him and it's terrifying. He finds it easier to run away, to feign detachment and never look back. But Claire was right, and he's done running away.

And so he pulls himself together and enters the room.

"Dr. Downey."

"Dr. Rhodes..." the man is barely awake but there's no denying his delight upon seeing his beloved protege.

"You mentioned wanting to get back to the islands, so I thought," Connor reaches in the paper bag to fish out the lei of flowers. He puts it on for him around his neck, not letting slip the blissful beam that emerges on the older man's face.

"Pikake," he says, bringing the flower to his nose. "Hawaiian name...for this jasmine."

Connor nods, carefully sitting down on the edge of the bed, "I thought you should know, I am staring my cardiothoracic fellowship."

"So I haven't been wasting my time."

"Not entirely, no," he grins, and the two of them burst into chuckles, before silence falls, lively Hawaiian music playing in the background.

"I never asked. Do you have any family?"

"I had a sister...passed away. If you're wondering...I've left instructions. Cremation."

"Okay," he nods, his voice coming out as a mere whisper.

"I need you to do something for me—for yourself, as a matter of fact. This girl that you're seeing..."

"Actually we're not—"

"I see the way you look at her."

There's nothing he can say to that.

"Now you hold on to her, you hear me? And you don't let go...Look at me."

He does.

"This is important. No love is roses all the way, and it's the thorns that makes it precious. You're young. You'll work it out, both of you together."

He wants to believe that, more than anything. Little does he know, just how heartbreaking what the older man is about to say.

"The worst regret of my life...is that I never thought to start a family...I let myself become an old man, waiting to die alone."

"You're not alone," he says assertively as he takes the older man's hand in a firm grip, rubbing it with his thumb.

"Not anymore," he smiles a weary smile, peaceful and content, and clears his throat. "I want you to know, Connor, you're like the son I never had."

If he had cringed at the sound of his own name, then what came after that might as well clogged up his aorta and shoved a huge lump up his throat that no words can come out, but they have to. He has to say them before it's too late. He needs him to hear it, even if it's just a tiny fraction of the gratitude that can be put into words, "Thank you, for everything."

Closure, that's what it takes, the cue for a dying man to let go, unburdened, freed from suffering.

Connor doesn't think he can ever forget the last look in his mentor's eyes, just as he can't forget the look in that girl's eyes, even though those looks are different. He rounds to the nurse station and leans on his elbows against the counter, his clasped hands pressed hard to his mouth and nose so that he cries silently, and no one around even notices what's going on until the monitors go off. He squeezes the tears out of his eyes and perks up with all the strength left in him, "he has a DNR. Let him go."

He knows it is what Downey wanted, but that doesn't make it hurt less to say those words; and it hurts a thousand times worse, to hear the words unspoken echoing in his own mind, the words he can never say: you're all the father that I ever wanted. Those words that, once said, would betray what they are, by making them something that they're not. Father and son? No, what they had is far more sacred than that.

* * *

Sarah has just finished sealing off the last box when the doorbell rings. Her astonishment is well justified as she opens the door to see Connor standing there. When he didn't call or answer his texts all day she just assumed he was busy with Downey and that he was fine as long as Med hadn't reported him missing or dead. That she was obviously wrong about because he looks far from okay. His hair is a mess and his eyes are wet and puffed and he looks like he's been crying.

"Dr. Downey..." she never wants to go there but then she has to, and he shakes his head, the pain ostensible on his face. "Oh my god. Connor I'm so sorry."

He gives a stiff nod, digging his hands in the pockets of his jacket, "look, I didn't come here to—I had to bring something for you."

"Yeah, sure, come in," she says crisply, and backs into the foyer to make way for him. "Watch the boxes."

"Wow," he remarks as he looks around her apartment, which has been practically stripped clean less the unmovable pieces of furniture. "You're moving all this to Rochester?"

"No. Most of these are getting sold," she rounds the dining table and comes face-to-face with him. There he remembers to take something out of his pocket.

"This is for you. Happy graduation," he says with a smile, handing it to her, a small rectangular box about the size of—well, terrible but truthful comparison—those for engagement rings, except it's made of cardboard paper. She opens it and finds this tiny cute jute bag inside. The content is definitely not lightweight. She opens the bag, revealing a piece of metal—rose gold, a spinning top. At first sight she gets the feeling that she has seen it before, and then she remembers it was one of five in his metal museum collection of spinning tops.

"You liked it," he explains. "First time you saw them the other night—"

"I did. I do." She remembers it far more clearly than she has intended to, the very first night, when it had all started, the pain, the anguish, and all the good things that have come out of it.

"It's perfect," she remarks as her fingers trace its immaculate surface, a satin, dewy pink, just like the first time she saw it standing on its dock on top of his fireplace, bathed in the balmy hue of his apartment lights. She gives him a heartfelt look in the eye, "Thank you Connor."

"You're welcome Sarah," he says with a ghost of a smile that vanishes in a heartbeat as sorrow once again adorns his face. "Well, I guess this is goodbye then."

"It doesn't have to be," she blurts out when he has made halfway to the door, and he turns back at her. He didn't even bother to take off his jacket. "I mean, you can stay if you want. It's late, and—"

"What am I supposed to do?" He cuts her off. "Sleep on your couch or with you."

"Whatever you want," she says genially, crossing her arms. "All I'm saying, is that you don't have to be alone right now."

He doesn't move or say anything. His eye are swaying. She can see that he's mulling it over. But his brain is too sleep-deprived to process grief, let alone other things.

"I would rather not sleep on your couch," he finally says, and she knows he's meaning to give in and accept her offer.

"Bedroom's that way," she pantomimes with a tilt of her head, arms still crossed. He goes about taking off his jacket, and she rummages one of her packed boxes to find him a set of spare toiletries. They wash and get into bed. They sleep on their sides with their backs turned to each other. He falls asleep before she does, and the last thing she remembers just as she drifts off is the sound of his breathing, slow and even and hypnotic.

She wakes up in the middle of the night not knowing how, until the noise coming from beside her snaps her wide awake. Connor is flouncing around in bed, his breathing quick and intermittent with short bursts of grunts and whimpers.

"No! Gotta try to...time of..." broken sentences and unintelligible words. She doesn't need to make out what he's saying to know that he's having a nightmare.

"Connor," she rolls over and reaches out a hand nudging at his shoulder. "Connor wake up. It's okay. You're okay. Just wake up."

But he won't wake. Just as she lifts him out of this nightmare he seems to quickly fall into a different one and he breaks down in tears, strangled sobs escaping his throat between shuddering breaths.

"Connor!" She shakes him harder, ready to slap him in the face, taken aback by the look in his eyes as they snap open. There's such grief, anger, pain and guilt in his eyes that if she ever thought she'd seen him in his worst she was wrong. She pulls him close, his head resting on her chest, her left arm tightly wrapped around his shoulder, and she keeps rubbing up and down his back while stroking through his hair with her other hand.

"It's okay now. You're awake. I'm here," she whispers to him over and over until she feels him ease up and his breathing steadies down. And when she feels it is safe to release him, they scoot a little apart and lie facing each other on their sides. Neither of them sleeps. She can tell that he's awake by his breathing rate and is pretty sure he's doing the same with her, and she hears him say,

"I don't want you to go."

And I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you. I'd give anything to stay with you. But none of that she says out loud. Instead she holds his hand and whispers in his ear,

"I'm not going anywhere, not tonight. I will stay with you tonight."


	10. Chapter 10

Sarah sits staring out the little round window at a wing silhouetted against a blazing, golden horizon. They're flinging west, racing the sun, when time fast backwards and the day suspends a few hours.

She stares and wonders what it'll feel like the next time she does the exact same thing as she's doing now, the next time she sits on the plane and the only difference would be flying northwest into Minnesota.

"You guys going on a honeymoon?" asks the grandpa in the Hawaiian shirt sitting next to them, in an overly fervent manner.

"No. Business," she says curtly, across from Connor, who nods in concurrence.

And there she remembers when he invited her to take this trip with him the morning they woke up in her apartment.

"So, I'm headed to Hawaii in a few days," that was the first thing he said to her that morning, as he came out of her bathroom still red-eyed, taking her offer of milk and an opened box of cereal from the counter. She shot her eyes up at him, startled. "There's something that Downey asked me to do for him," he fills the bowl with milk and then stops to look at her. "Maybe you wanna join me?"

It took her just a little moment to figure out what he was referring to, and still couldn't bring herself to find the right words. Thankfully her mouth was full, even though she almost choked on her food.

Silence fell between them as he takes seat beside her, not that it was in any way awkward. He was well aware that she needed time to process what he had just asked her.

They finished their breakfast in silence, and it was almost like that evening by the food truck.

They did their dishes side by side, just like when they did surgery they could go by with hardly anything to say to each other, leaving whatever entanglements in their lives completely outside the bubble, and it was strangely reassuring. And no, she wouldn't consider it escaping or avoiding their problems. It was just how they got by.

"Yes," she said to him as abruptly as he'd brought it up to her, as he was dutifully stowing away her bowl and she turned off the tap. "I'd like that."

And so it was it. He just nodded, apparently relieved. It wouldn't have been their coincided day off hadn't he taken some personal days, but anyway they went out wandering the streets of Chicago and wound up in Lincoln Park. They took a long walk down the harbor, chatting about work and nothing in particular, and she told him about this private vacation retort in Hawaii that she knows of, and the big check her mother had sent her, and they settled on fixing themselves a little place for just two nights before she leaves for Rochester. That evening she went about making the reservation and he booked their flight, and of course she had to postpone hers.

That's how they ended up together on a plane to the world-renowned vacation island and inevitably mistaken for a couple, at which they both had a good laugh secretly inside. Seriously though, she still can't quite figure out what they are. The best she can do is that they're good friends who choose not to fall in love, or not just yet. Turns out she can live with that just fine, the ambiguity of their relationship. By now she thinks she must have been pretty used to all the uncertainty in her life already.

It is a long flight, but interestingly enough she's never been one to find it tiring. Some time in the middle they get up and go to the bathroom together, just so they don't have to excuse themselves to grandpa more than once, and then she watches him sleep, a little habit that seems to have grown into an obsession.

It is quite a drive in rental car down to the beach. They take turns just so they can both catch a good glimpse of the view speeding by, in a dream-like sense. By the time they make it to that little cabin awaiting amidst the trees and sand with its little wooden deck stretching out into the sea, it has simply become impossible to believe that all that they're seeing is real.

It really is a small cabin with one open-plan bedroom and living room and no kitchen and to their panic no chips or expired yogurt or any of the quick bites they usually grab at and after work. Other than that, it virtually is her dream house. She embraces the airy, minimalist quality to its furnishing, redwood flooring and walls painted white. Everything is refined and delicate, with a fragile sense of impermanence that at one point or another it gets washed up here only to be redeemed by the unremitting tide, a reminder that nothing lasts forever.

They take quick showers, him after her, just to wash the plane off of themselves. They order an overly fancy dinner and take it to the Honolulu sunset out on the porch, a golden purple watercolor pouring out of a vast sky that seems to stretch on forever. How is it possible that one can feel so small and enormous at the same time? She wonders. Everything other than themselves is a silhouette, the sky-scraping coconut trees, the neighboring islands floating on the skyline, the kissing couple standing on the deck not far from theirs.

Sarah goes to grab a book and sits on the far end of the deck with her feet dangling off the edge, and reads, while Connor, without her realizing, stands leaning against the door frame watching as her silhouette starts to blend into the night, and he comes up and sits close to her, not physically touching but just close enough so they can hear each other over the sounds of the birds and the waves.

"Well, this is different," he remarks, turning to look at her. "Thanks for finding this place."

"Yeah, sure," they exchange a heartbeat of a look.

"It's like—it feels really secluded out here and...it makes me sometimes get the feeling that we could just—"

"Disappear? Maybe freeze time and stay here forever?" He laughs as she jestingly finishes his sentence, before she turns all serious all of a sudden, "you know how they say, you have to live in the moment? I used to be a reverent believer, but when you think about it, at times, where's hope in that?"

"Well, I don't know what I believe," he confesses after thinking. "Not anymore."

"Hold that thought," she straightens up, demanding. "You'll find out for yourself. Take my word for it. And when we come back in a few years you'll prove me right."

"Last time I checked, I was the older one of us two."

"Doesn't make you wiser," she teases. "To tell you the truth? There was a time when I was little, I thought I wanted to become a philosopher."

And it's one of those surprising fact you find about someone and can't take for a lie in retrospect.

"I'm sure you'll make a great one."

"Well then I'm flattered."

There he doesn't think he can ever forget that nifty grin that's stolen its way onto her lips and eyes.

After a little while she gets up and goes inside, deciding to continue her reading in bed. She's nearly finished the book by the time he comes back in ready to sleep on the couch.

"You don't have to do that," she tells him, offering the empty side of the bed. "I don't mind if you don't mind."

He thinks about it for a moment and decides that he doesn't mind, and crawls in beneath the covers next to but not touching her. She curls up with her back to him, and quickly falls asleep, only to wake up out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Somehow in their sleep they've turned face-to-face posing out the shape of a heart, with Connor hugging close a heap of the comforter that fall in the space between them. For a long time she lies awake counting his breaths, and gets thrown back to that first night in his apartment, and the second, to the third time in the on-call room, then to the other night when he'd fallen asleep in her arms. The desire is there, always has been, that is undeniable, and so is that those were the times when she dreamed and craved and itched for the physical, for a savage kind of pleasure that she knew would betray something otherwise sacred.

* * *

The next morning they take a long walk down to another beach where it's Dr. Downey's favorite spot on the island. It being early enough is just them, and the sand, air, trees, and water, and it feels like they were the last two people on earth and that all they have is time.

"So you've never been here before?" At one point she asks him.

"Well, I always wanted to come as a kid but," he looks to her and they lock eyes for a beat. "Dad never could find the time."

"Me too. I mean I don't remember ever going to the beach with my family when I was little and—then it was just my mother and I..." Now that she's thinking about it, the words just seems to slip out of her mouth, "what about your mom?"

He looks startled at first, his head whipped to her. Then he looks away, focusing on the sand beneath their feet, "one day, that's what she always said. And then—well, I guess that day never came."

She wants to argue that it isn't true because he's here now, but then realizes what he really meant, that he never wanted to be here alone anyway.

"Wow. Do you see right there?" She says in a light voice, pointing out to the ocean. "Where those two waves collide and become one? It's like...how far have you traveled? Years? Thousands of years? Lifetimes? For this one moment, right here, right now, to find each other, and then to crash, and go back out to sea in search of one another again."

Somewhere in all of this, her eyes have found his and they're standing incredibly close. There's this moment when they both see what's about to happen in the next, or think they do.

"And here we are," he says in a low voice, holding her gaze, but then and there she pulls away, turns her back on him and resumes walking on.

"No," he calls after her. "I was saying that we're here. This is the spot."

She freezes, turning back to take it all in, the myriad of coconut trees so dense that almost all of the beach behind them are in the shade, and the sky's reflection in the water, the bluest blue ever.

For a little while she can't find him anywhere. Then with a second look she spots him standing in the water not far off shore, melted into the blue in his blue T-shirt and swim shorts. She lingers in the back watching as he scatters the remains of his beloved mentor into the ocean, and when he's finished she comes up beside him and takes his hand. At the touch he looks down and sees her doing it, but does not pull away, only he holds tighter onto the metal urn in his other arm, and together they muse for a long time at the gray ashes drifting away with the waves.

* * *

It's in that afternoon, as he nods off in the drowsy island heat, sprawled in the hammock dangling on the porch, that Connor dreams of his mother for the first time as a presence in twenty-two years, and not an absence. Of all the times he dreamed of her when he was a child, he never could find her, and then he dreamed no more over the years that he didn't think he'd find her ever again, until now. He turns to look and there she is, standing in the bedroom of the bungalow looking out the window, an embodied presence, an otherworldly existence and psychic reality, as if the blue-painted window frame was the magical opening to whatever place she lives in. Somehow he knows he isn't allowed to go inside, that to look at her directly would violate the laws of both worlds. And that's okay because all that matters is the moment when their eyes touch through the glass—her beautiful dark blue eyes with that sparkle of intelligence and affection—and she is saying to him, in that airy, hypnotic voice of hers, "One day, honey bear. What did I tell you?"

And then somehow as he realizes, she has made her way around to him, and reached out to touch him in the shoulder. Or rather, it isn't her but that doesn't matter. He lets her fragrance wrap around him. She smells freshly of sea air and sand, her hair tangled in clammy, salty locks.

"Hey there, sleeping beauty," her voice gently tugs him back into the waking reality. She has one hand on his shoulder and is fisting something in the other. He opens his palm for her to drop it in. "It's for you."

He holds it up to the light, a seashell, one of a cowrie's, glossy milk-white spotted with tortoise specks, and no more than two inches in length, yet it feels solid and durable to the touch.

"Thanks Sarah," he smiles up at her, enclosing it in his hand. "It's beautiful."

He knows then that it's her promise to him, just like the spinning top was his promise to her, one that they will always hold onto, be it fulfilled or not.

They sit side by side on the deck as the the sun goes down and the stars come up. At one point inadvertently she looks him in the eye, and sees the reflection of those stars twinkling in his eyes that are dark blue in the low light. She can imagine that he's seeing it in her eyes too, and there they find themselves on a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being and time ceases to exist.

He pulls her close and she feels his lips on hers, a soft, gentle touch. She breathes and takes in the sweetness of his skin, and returns the kiss with the same amount of remain in their entanglement for a long while, their lips connected, their thighs rubbed together and their arms entwined around each other. It isn't until she tastes the saltwater in her mouth does she realize she's crying, and when they pull apart he holds onto her, his eyes searching hers that are shying away. He cups her face with his hands and when she looks up at him her eyes are wide with tears that cannot be put into words. They wrap themselves into an embrace and there she finds herself whispering in his ear something she could've said a long time ago but never did, something they both knew well enough without her ever needing to say it out loud, and that is, of course, "I love you too."


End file.
